WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 09th September, 2021) The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is changing the rules of its Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honeybees, and Farm-Raised Fish Program (ELAP) to include aid that offsets livestock feed transportation costs, Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack said during remarks at the White House on Wednesday.
"Right now, we're deeply concerned about the impacts and effects of drought on these beef prices and pork prices and poultry prices... for that reason, we've looked at a number of different steps to try and provide help and assistance to deal with the drought, and today we identified yet another way in which we can provide help and assistance... we're now changing [ELAP] to include also assistance and help for transportation expenses for feed," Vilsack said.
Prior to this change, the program explicitly covered losses due to drought or wildfire ineligible for assistance. An April 2021 fact sheet for the program said that "ELAP provides assistance for livestock feed and grazing losses that are not due to drought or wildfires on federally managed lands [or] losses resulting from the cost of transporting water to livestock due to an eligible drought."
Although ELAP benefits do not have any payment limitations, persons and entities with an average adjusted gross income of more than $900,000 are ineligible to receive them, according to the USDA program fact sheet.
