USDA-FSA Finalizes Decisions on ELAP for Aquaculture, LFBF hopeful for Distribution Soon

By Andy Brown

Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation

Due to February 2021 Winter Storm Events, aquaculture producers, including Louisiana crawfish farmers, looked to USDA for disaster assistance for those that suffered severe production losses as a result of this weather event. Joining in advocacy efforts with neighboring states and other aquaculture species of Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi – Louisiana crawfish producers were pleased when their advocacy efforts came to fruition. In May of 2021, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced “fish raised for food” would join farm raised sport and game fish as covered commodities under Emergency Livestock Assistance Program (ELAP).

Typically, this program would have required producers to report losses within 30 days of the storm event. However, being newly included to the program, USDA extended the signup period through January 31, 2022 for aquaculture food species. During this time, Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation has been monitoring the development of this program at the request of the Crawfish Advisory Committee and its members anxiously awaiting this needed assistance.

Earlier this week, final decisions on mortality rates and payment structure were made in Washington D.C. by USDA Administrators.

Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation would like to thank Congresswoman Julia Letlow and Congressman Clay Higgins for monitoring this program along with them, and to Congressman Garret Graves for personally weighing in with USDA to insure this assistance moved forward towards reaching those it’s intended to help.

We encourage our crawfish producers to remain patient, however. While the necessary information has been provided to field offices, as well as guidance for moving forward with the processing of applications, there is still work internally left to do at USDA-FSA before this assistance reaches farmers.

Acting USDA-FSA State Director Christine Normand shared this statement with LFBF on Friday:

“Please be aware that there are still multiple steps that the applications will have to go through prior to the issuance of payments. Each application must be reviewed by the local County Committees to ensure that all program eligibility is met. In addition, the Deputy Administrator of Farm Programs is requiring that all applications be second-party reviewed by the Louisiana State Office.  Due to the volume of applications that we have Statewide, this review process will take time.  Once reviews are completed, the applications will be returned to the local office for payment processing. We feel that we have established an efficient process that will run smoothly and ensure that payments will be issued in a reasonable and timely manner, however, due to the process involved, payments will not be issued next week as some of you may have heard.”

As always, Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation appreciates the relationship our membership has with USDA-FSA employees from the county office, to the state office, and on up to DC.