Eligible area farmers and ranchers are encouraged to sign up for the Quality Loss Adjustment Program if they had a qualifying loss, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency reported.
Funded by the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2020, this new program provides assistance to producers who suffered eligible crop quality losses due to natural disasters occurring in 2018 and 2019. The deadline to apply for the Quality Loss Adjustment Program is March 5.
Eligible crops include those for which federal crop insurance or Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program coverage is available, except for grazed crops and value loss crops, such as honey, maple sap, aquaculture, floriculture, mushrooms, ginseng root, ornamental nursery, Christmas trees and turfgrass sod.
Additionally, crops sold or fed to livestock or in storage may be eligible; however, crops destroyed before harvest are not eligible. Crop quality losses occurring after harvest, due to deterioration in storage, or that could have been mitigated, are also not eligible.
Assistance is based on a producer’s harvested affected production of an eligible crop, which must have had at least a 5% quality loss reflected through a quality discount; or for forage crops, a nutrient loss, such as total digestible nutrients.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Farm Service Agency will issue payments once the application period ends. If the total amount of calculated Quality Loss Adjustment payments exceeds available program funding, payments will be prorated.
For more information, visit farmers.gov/quality-loss , or contact your local USDA Service Center (Wadena/Hubbard counties, 218-631-2876; Aitkin/Itasca counties and Crow Wing/Cass counties, 218-829-5965). Producers can also obtain one-on-one support with applications by calling 877-508-8364.
