H47 - Disaster Recovery Act of 2025 - Part I. (SL 2025-2)

Overview: Subpart II‑D of S.L. 2025‑2 (House Bill 47) creates within the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (DACS) the Agricultural Crop Loss Program (Crop Loss Program) to provide financial assistance to farmers affected by Hurricane Helene or any agricultural disaster in 2024. This CLP is available for any person that experienced a verifiable loss of an agricultural or aquaculture commodity or farm infrastructure for a farm located in an affected area and the commodity was planted but not harvested on or before a respective agricultural disaster in the year 2024 that resulted in the commodity's or farm infrastructure's verified loss.

DACS shall allocate the funds appropriated in the act for the CLP as follows:

1. $200 million for verifiable losses from Hurricane Helene in the affected area.
2. $100 million for verifiable losses from an agricultural disaster in 2024, excluding Hurricane Helene. Additionally, the Department shall use remaining funds from Section 5.9A(c)(2) of S.L. 2021‑180 and Section 5.4(a)(4) of S.L. 2022‑74 for the same purpose.

This Subpart of the act became effective July 1, 2025, and expires 30 months after that date. Any funds allocated to the Program not expended or encumbered by that date must revert to the State Emergency Response and Disaster Relief Fund.