On Monday, the House finally passed the long awaited disaster funding. The Senate overwhelmingly passed the bill before the Memorial Day break and we had to wait until Monday while staunch fiscal conservative members from various states held up the matter three times in. The House passed the measure by a 354-58. All Democrats and a vast majority of republicans voted for the bill. The roll call vote can be found here.

The bill included $5.5 Billion for agriculture including the hurricanes in the SE and wildfires out west but also the flooding earlier this year in the mid-west. Details of the program aren’t out yet but the program that most of our producers will be working with is the WHIP program. This is a slightly better version of the WHIP from the 2017 crop with some slight changes to the whip factor.

Other news sources will have more detailed information as the rules are written and the program is implemented. We had been waiting on this so long, we wanted to make sure you knew this was moving forward finally. I’m a bit late getting this out as Andy and I are both in MS teaching at gin school this week.