May 28, 1999

Farmers who signed up for disaster aid will start getting their checks next week when USDA begins mailing payments equal to 84.9% of certified losses on Tuesday. The process should take a week to 10 days. About two-thirds of the $2 billion going to 266,000 farmers is for 1998 losses, the rest for multi-year losses.

At a news conference Thursday to announce the disaster aid, Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman said the June 1 release date is two weeks ahead of what USDA had expected. The average payment is $7,000, but the maximum payment being made is $67,920. Texas is the hardest hit but not far behind are North and South Dakota, California, Southeast Georgia, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas.

Among the provisions USDA already made was $400 million to lower 1999 crop insurance payments that came from the disaster aid money. Asked if that money might have been better used for disaster payments, Glickman said the decision was made to increase crop insurance buy-ups, and 125,000 new buy-up policies had been written for 1999 coverage, implying the $400 million helped that happen.

An effort had been made in Congress to include another $1.5 billion in disaster aid in the supplemental appropriations bill now signed into law. But Glickman said if the remaining 15% of certified past-year losses were to be paid, the total would be $340 million, not $1.5 billion. The supplemental appropriations measure included money to guarantee another $1 billion in loans to farmers.