Will Congress Expand WHIP

Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue hopes USDA's disaster relief authority will be extended to cover hurricanes in 2018.  Perdue said he is hopeful Congress will authorize more disaster relief for this year, comparable to the Wildfire and Hurricane Indemnity Program to help Ag producers who suffered losses due to these disasters in 2017.

"Congress was, very compassionate last year in a program that they allowed us to develop, what's called the WHIP program."

Perdue said USDA is in the midst of assessing this year's costs.

"I would hope that Congress would give us the statutory authority to expand that to the 2018 Hurricanes Florence and Michael as well."

There are no final monetary figures yet, but he says there has been clear and comparable physical damage.

"The destruction has been much the same in fact, sometimes we're talking, regarding tree loss, has been even greater than it was last year."

The sign up period for WHIP 2017 is currently open with a deadline of November 16, 2018, for more information visit the USDA’s Website.

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