News Update

News Update
April 6, 2006

Disaster Assistance for Producers

The Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday passed an emergency supplemental bill that offers comprehensive disaster assistance for farmers and ranchers and aid for the commercial seafood industry to help recover from last year’s red tide and hurricane losses.

Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) offered the bipartisan legislation, which also would fund costs of the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina relief.

This has been a tough year for farmers and ranchers, according to a release from the National Farmers Union (NFU). In addition to rising energy costs, and the extensive loss of crops and livestock from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, farmers and ranchers faced continued drought in the Midwest, fires in Oklahoma and Texas, flooding in the Great Plains, and other weather-related disasters nationwide.

New Agriculture Disaster Assistance Measure

Congressman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) introduced new bipartisan legislation in the House to provide disaster relief to farmers and ranchers who have experienced weather-related crop losses, loss of livestock and damage to livestock feed supplies.

“We are pursuing every possible way to get help out there to farmers and ranchers who have struggled to recover from the natural disasters that hit our rural communities hard in 2005,” Peterson said.

Peterson first introduced a bill to provide disaster assistance for farmers and ranchers last year. During the House Agriculture Committee’s markup of the budget reconciliation in December, his bill was offered as an amendment, but failed on a party-line vote. A similar amendment offered in the Appropriations Committee this year also failed.

The Emergency Disaster Assistance Act of 2006 also will assist farmers who were overwhelmed by energy prices that spiked following last year’s hurricanes. Energy-related farm expenses increased by more than $6 billion last year compared to the previous year, which reduced farm income.

Similar language on agriculture disaster assistance was introduced in the U.S. Senate by Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota earlier this month and recently was passed in committee as an amendment proposed by Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota.

— compiled by Brooke Byrd, assistant editor, Angus Productions Inc.