Recovery will take plenty of grit and a healthy dose of elbow grease for those hit the hardest by the harsh winter and widespread flooding in the Northern Plains. But there are programs, some of them newly inserted into the farm bill, to help with the economic side of things.

Terry Miller, director of the county FSA office in Grand Forks, N.D., describes what is available to producers.

SURE

The main FSA program is the Supplemental Revenue Assistance Payments, or SURE, program. It was built into the new farm bill.

“That’s the primary disaster program where people would be reimbursed for losses due to hail, drought, and things like that,” he says.

The SURE program was designed primarily for crop losses.

“We’re going to be running it for the 2008 program year,” he says. “We’ll probably be running it sometime this summer or fall.”

There is a linkage requirement. For producers to qualify, they have to obtain crop insurance or a noninsured assistance program policy on all crops of economic significance.

To learn more about the LIP and ELAP programs, link to AgWeek.