Agricultural Emergency Relief Act of 2025
Sponsored By: Representative Thompson (CA)
Introduced
Summary
Creates a new USDA Emergency Relief Program to pay crop producers for defined disaster losses. It pairs insurance-based indemnities with a revenue-based fallback for uninsured producers and sets income-linked payment caps and post-payment insurance requirements.
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Bill Overview
Analyzed Economic Effects
3 provisions identified: 2 benefits, 0 costs, 1 mixed.
Emergency crop loss payments
If enacted, the bill would create an Emergency Relief Program to pay producers for crop, tree, bush, or vine losses caused by listed disasters. For producers with Federal Crop Insurance or NC-DAP payments, payments may be based on indemnities and coverage with a factor not more than 90 percent. For producers without such coverage, payments would compare revenue in a benchmark year to the disaster year with a factor not more than 70 percent. Wine-grape producers who use at least 75% of grapes to make wine at a producer-owned facility would get payments based on market rates for wine grapes. The bill would cap per-crop-year payments by a producer based on average adjusted gross farm income: if AAGFI < 75% the caps are $125,000 for specialty/high-value crops and $125,000 for other crops; if AAGFI ≥ 75% the caps are $900,000 for specialty/high-value crops and $250,000 for other crops. Total payments would not exceed 90% of qualified losses for insured producers, or 70% for uninsured producers. Recipients would have to buy Federal Crop Insurance for each of the next two crop years if available, or NC-DAP if not.
Funding and admin limit
If enacted, the bill would authorize such sums as are necessary to carry out the program for fiscal years 2025 through 2030. The Secretary of Agriculture could use up to 1% of each year's money for administrative costs. The actual program cost would depend on how much Congress appropriates each year.
Who and what counts for relief
If enacted, the bill would define which disasters and losses qualify for payments and who is a "producer." Disasters listed include drought, wildfire, hurricane, flood, derecho, excessive heat, excessive moisture, winter storm, and freeze (including polar vortex). A county meets the drought test if any area had D2 for 8 or more straight weeks or D3 (or worse) during the year. A "qualified loss" would include prevented planting, losses in crop quality, and smoke-related quality damage (including wine grapes). The bill would define a producer as someone eligible for FSA disaster help but would exclude joint ventures and general partnerships. The bill would average adjusted gross income over the three tax years before the last full year and count the farm share of that average as average adjusted gross farm income.
Sponsors & CoSponsors
Sponsor
Thompson (CA)
CA • D
Cosponsors
LaMalfa
CA • R
Sponsored 7/10/2025
Rep. Panetta, Jimmy [D-CA-19]
CA • D
Sponsored 7/10/2025
Costa
CA • D
Sponsored 7/10/2025
Rep. Valadao, David G. [R-CA-22]
CA • R
Sponsored 7/10/2025
Rep. Harder, Josh [D-CA-9]
CA • D
Sponsored 7/14/2025
Roll Call Votes
No roll call votes available for this bill.
View on Congress.gov