Tornado | Field 2 Field

USDA assistance is now available for producers who were hit by natural disasters in 2018 and 2019. Lord knows there were enough of them to last most farmers a lifetime.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA) today announced that signup for the Quality Loss Adjustment (QLA) Program will begin Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021. 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 this USDA assistance is Friday, March 5, 2021.

“Farmers and livestock producers nationwide experienced crop quality losses due to natural disasters in 2018 and 2019,” said. Bill Northey, USDA Under Secretary for Farm Production and Conservation. “We have worked diligently over the past couple of years to roll out meaningful USDA assistance programs to help alleviate the substantial financial loss experienced by so many agricultural producers, and are pleased to offer quality loss assistance as added relief. Many of the eligible producers have already received compensation for quantity losses.”

Eligible Crops

Crops eligible for USDA assistance include those for which federal crop insurance or Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program(NAP) 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 that were sold or fed to livestock or that are in storage may be eligible; however, crops that were 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.

Qualifying Disaster Events

Losses must have been a result of a qualifying disaster event (hurricane, excessive moisture, flood, qualifying drought, tornado, typhoon, volcanic activity, snowstorm, or wildfire) or related condition that occurred in calendar years 2018 and/or 2019.

Assistance is available for eligible producers in counties that received a qualifying Presidential Emergency Disaster Declaration or Secretarial Disaster Designation because of one or more of the qualifying disaster events or related conditions.

Lists of counties with Presidential Emergency Disaster Declarations and Secretarial Disaster Designations for all qualifying disaster events for 2018 and 2019 are available here. For drought, producers are eligible for QLA if the loss occurred in an area within a county rated by the U.S. Drought Monitor as having a D3 (extreme drought) or higher intensity level during 2018 or 2019.

Producers in counties that did not receive a qualifying declaration or designation may still apply but must also provide supporting documentation to establish that the crop was directly affected by a qualifying disaster event.

To determine QLA eligibility and payments, FSA considers the total quality loss caused by all qualifying natural disasters in cases where a crop was impacted by multiple events.

Applying for QLA

When applying, producers are asked to provide verifiable documentation to support claims of quality loss or nutrient loss in the case of forage crops. For crops that have been sold, grading must have been completed within 30 days of harvest, and for forage crops, a laboratory analysis must have been completed within 30 days of harvest.

Some acceptable forms of documentation include sales receipts from buyers, settlement sheets, truck or warehouse scale tickets, written sales contracts, similar records that represent actual and specific quality loss information, and forage tests for nutritional values.

Payments Calculations and Limitations

QLA payments are based on formulas for the type of crop (forage or non-forage) and loss documentation submitted. Based on this documentation FSA is calculating payments based on the producer’s own individual loss or based on the county average loss. More information on payments can be found on farmers.gov/quality-loss.

FSA will issue payments once the application period ends. If the total amount of calculated QLA payments exceeds available program funding, payments will be prorated.

For each crop year, 2018, 2019 and 2020, the maximum amount that a person or legal entity may receive, directly or indirectly, is $125,000. Payments made to a joint operation (including a general partnership or joint venture) will not exceed $125,000, multiplied by the number of persons and legal entities that comprise the ownership of the joint operation. A person or legal entity is ineligible for QLA payment if the person’s or legal entity’s average Adjusted Gross Income exceeds $900,000, unless at least 75% is derived from farming, ranching or forestry-related activities.

Future Insurance Coverage Requirements

All producers receiving QLA Program payments are required to purchase crop insurance or NAP coverage for the next two available crop years at the 60% coverage level or higher. If eligible, QLA participants may meet the insurance purchase requirement by purchasing Whole-Farm Revenue Protection coverage offered through USDA’s Risk Management Agency.

More Information

For more information, visit farmers.gov/quality-loss, or contact your local USDA Service Center. Producers can also obtain one-on-one support with applications by calling 877-508-8364.

All USDA Service Centers are open for business, including those that restrict in-person visits or require appointments. All Service Center visitors wishing to conduct business with FSA, Natural Resources Conservation Service, or any other Service Center agency should call ahead and schedule an appointment. Service Centers that are open for appointments will pre-screen visitors based on health concerns or recent travel, and visitors must adhere to social distancing guidelines. Visitors are also required to wear a face covering during their appointment. Our program delivery staff will continue to work with our producers by phone, email and using online tools. More information can be found at farmers.gov/coronavirus.

Employees and management at Vermeer Manufacturing in Pella, Iowa, will always remember July 19, 2018. An EF3 tornado tore through the campus, causing significant damage and a number of non-life-threatening injuries. To add insult to injury, the tornado hit as the company was celebrating its 70^th anniversary.

In the immediate aftermath of the storm, Vermeer CEO Jason Andringa said, “We’ve dealt with several challenges during our 70 years of doing business and we’ve survived them thus far. We plan on doing it again.” That recovery is well underway.

“I was there that day, taking part at an anniversary event at which we had brought in more than 400 customers and dealers,” said Mark Core, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Vermeer. “We had an unbelievably good day. I’d just left to go to another meeting at the corporate building, so I was as far away as I could get from the tornado and still be on the campus.

“The people that were closer than I was described a lot of flying debris,” said Core. “A lot of people in our tornado shelters didn’t necessarily hear anything but they did feel their ears pop. They knew something was close. But, for most people, they really didn’t have any idea how big the tornado was until they walked outside.”

Awe and bewilderment are terms Core used to describe the reactions in the aftermath. Several plants sustained heavy damage and the wastewater treatment facility was a total loss. As the recovery process continues, Core said they will have to demolish two of their manufacturing facilities on the Vermeer campus.

“That means about 30 percent of our manufacturing space will be demolished,” Core said. “It should take two or three years to rebuild, including the time it takes to decide exactly how we want it rebuilt.

“Our CEO (Andringa), the grandson of our founder, set two immediate goals the next day,” Core recalled. “The first goal was getting everyone back to work within 45 days, so they could get back to their normal livelihood. The second was he wanted us to build ourselves back stronger than ever by 2020.

“We got everybody back to work in 31 days,” he recalled. “The second goal is what we’re in the middle of right now. Some things force a company to reinvent itself. Vermeer has never had a financial crisis because of how the owners manage the company. We’ve never been part of a purchase or acquisition. But, we did have a tornado. That gives us the opportunity of a clean slate to improve how we do things.”

In his words, Core said they are “shockingly” back up to pre-storm production levels. They had to shift some of their divisions into rented buildings in order to reclaim some space. He said the workers are more crowded in than they were before. They did have to outsource a few things temporarily as well. He said, “it might look too good to the naked eye,” but they’re still producing at a high level.

“I think a big key to the rebuilding is the passion of Midwest workers who believe in the family and the company,” Core added. “The only way to get everybody back to work in 45 days was to figure out how to get the production lines back in place in 30 days. It hasn’t been easy and there’s still a lot to learn over the next two-or-three months about our temporary world here, but so far, it’s been really pretty amazing.”

The company had a small spike in back orders during the first few weeks after the tornado, but overall, Core said the disruption at the dealer level has been small. He said their dealers did a “phenomenal job” of working with each other to help take care of customers.

“It’s been so much fun to watch the people on our staff rise and shine as they continue to help the company move in the right direction,” Core said with a smile visible even during a phone conversation. “They’ve been able to make quick and smart decisions on things like production, environmental health and safety, facilities, and senior leadership.

“We’ve also had a lot of support from our community,” Core added. “We’ve even had a lot of help from companies that you’d consider our competitors. It’s humbling when you hear from a major competitor that night who told us their people want to head our way and see if they could help us. I think we had a total of eight competitors contact us within the first 24 hours.

Core said it says a lot about people in the business of agriculture, who are always willing to lend a hand in the worst of situations.

“I think we’re getting through this,” Core said.

Here’s a first-hand, birds-eye view of the damage at the Vermeer plant taken by a drone on the same day.

Tag: Tornado

USDA assistance for quality loss now available

Vermeer Bouncing Back from 2018 Tornado