By RACHEL LANE

D.C. Correspondent

WASHINGTON, D.C. — During a week of floods across parts of the United States, members of Congress met to discuss disaster relief for agriculture.

The House Agriculture subcommittees on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management and Livestock and Foreign Agriculture co-hosted the hearing last Thursday. Topics from trade to implementation of the farm bill were discussed.

Communication with farmers seemed to be a key theme. The new Dairy Margin Coverage Program (DMC) has an equal number of signups as the previous year’s enrollment, and an extra week has been added to sign up. The deadline is now Sept. 27, said Bill Northey, under secretary of Farm Production and Conservation with the USDA.

With the changes to the program, legislators wanted to know why signups weren’t higher than about 60 percent of dairy farmers. Northey said the USDA has tried many ways to reach farmers, from mailings to via farm organizations.

In southern Iowa, people were kayaking into their homes in the spring, but information about getting assistance to file claims about the flooding were also being mailed to those homes, said Rep. Cindy Axne (D-Iowa).

“We started that long road to recovery … without government help,” she said. Neighbors, farmers, churches, and other organizations worked together to make sure everyone had food and a place to sleep. “We need to do better providing streamline processes that can go into effect immediately after a disaster.”

Legislators from Georgia had similar comments, with GOP Rep. Austin Scott questioning the speed at which financial relief could be made available. In 2018, Hurricane Michael caused billions in damage to farms, but it took almost a year for Congress to appropriate the money.

In 2018, there were natural disasters in Hawaii, California, the Carolinas, Washington, and more, he said. The farmers in those areas had to wait to get funding, and now part of the money for 2018 is being used to cover disasters that happened in 2019.

At the same time, there is still money earmarked for disasters in 2017 that cannot be touched, and Scott would like to see it used for the more recent disasters.

When questioned, Northey said the data about the impact of the 2018 disasters Scott had were the most recent figures. The information is from November 2018, Scott countered, and isn’t accurate.

“We can’t take a year to respond to storm damage. It was local, Georgia loan programs that kept my people farming,” he said.

Implementation and signup for 2018 farm bill programs has begun, Northey informed those at the hearing. When questioned, he said many USDA offices are understaffed, but do have about 90 percent staffing. The new programs have caused the understaffed offices some additional work, but USDA is working to fully staff each office. Training employees in those offices is also underway.

The Market Facilitation Program (MFP) is intended to assist farmers most directly harmed by retaliatory tariffs imposed as a result of the administration’s trade war. The expanded Wildfire and Hurricane Indemnity Program, or WHIP-Plus, will aid in rural recovery from natural disasters. And programs like Agriculture Loss Coverage (ARC), Price Loss Coverage (PLC), DMC, and other supports within Title I of the farm bill provide a risk management framework for farmers and ranchers.

Rep. Filemon Vela (D-Texas), chair of the Commodities and Risk Management Subcommittee, said he wants to make sure these programs are implemented in a fair way that quickly helps farmers.

Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.), chair of the Livestock and Foreign Agriculture Subcommittee, pointed out farmers want markets for their products. The MFP helps with income, but does not replace the $2.3 billion in revenue farmers have lost since the trade war with China began.

“I fear this is becoming the new normal. If the administration can’t conclude trade deals, we need to seriously consider what the future looks like for American farmers and ranchers,” he said.