During Tuesday’s Farmer of the Year Award luncheon at the Sunbelt Ag Expo, one of the guest speakers was U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue. He briefly hit on a few of the issues of importance to Southeast farmers, including disaster relief. Afterwards, during a quick press conference, he told Southeast AgNet’s Randall Weiseman that ag producers who applied for assistance through the Wildfire and Hurricane Indemnity Program Plus (WHIP+), may start receiving payments later this week.
WHIP+ is available for producers who have suffered eligible losses of certain crops, trees, bushes or vines in counties with a Presidential Emergency Disaster Declaration or a Secretarial Disaster Designation (primary counties only). Disaster losses must have been a result of hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, typhoons, volcanic activity, snowstorms or wildfires that occurred in 2018 or 2019. Also, producers in counties that did not received a disaster declaration or designation may still apply for WHIP+ but must provide supporting documentation to establish that the crops were directly affected by a qualifying disaster loss.
A list of counties that received qualifying disaster declarations and designations is available at farmers.gov/recover/whip-plus.