H.R. 4354 — Agricultural Emergency Relief Act of 2025

This section establishes definitions for terms used in the Act, including (1) average adjusted gross farm income, as the portion of a producer's average adjusted gross income derived from farming, ranching, or forestry operations; (2) average adjusted gross income, as a producer's adjusted gross income (per IRC §62) averaged over the three preceding taxable years; (3) disaster, encompassing drought (if rated D2 on the U.S. Drought Monitor for eight or more consecutive weeks or D3 or higher in the applicable year), wildfire, hurricane, flood, derecho, excessive heat or moisture, winter storm, and freeze event (including polar vortex); (4) Federal Crop Insurance, as any program under the Federal Crop Insurance Act (7 U.S.C. 1501 et seq.); (5) Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program, as the program under 7 U.S.C. 7333; (6) producer, as an individual or entity eligible for Farm Service Agency disaster assistance (excluding joint ventures and general partnerships); (7) qualified loss, as a loss to crops, trees, bushes, or vines due to a disaster (including prevented planting, quality degradation, and smoke exposure from wildfires); and (8) Secretary, as the Secretary of Agriculture.

This section establishes an emergency relief program under which the Secretary of Agriculture provides payments during each crop year to producers that experienced a qualified loss, as demonstrated in an approved application. (As background, payments supplement Federal Crop Insurance—subsidized multi-peril coverage for insurable crops—or the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) for noninsurable crops.) Payments are calculated, to the maximum extent practicable, using prior data on insurance indemnities or NAP payments, coverage levels, and a Secretary-determined factor of up to 90%; for uninsured producers, using a revenue-based formula comparing benchmark-year allowable gross revenue (from eligible crops or value-added sales) to disaster-year revenue (up to 70% factor, with adjustments for specialty and high-value crops); or, for vertically integrated wine grape producers using ≥75% of grapes in owned facilities, based on market rates for wine grapes. As a condition of payment, producers must purchase Federal Crop Insurance (if available) or NAP coverage for each of the next two crop years. Per-crop-year payment limits are (1) for producers with average adjusted gross farm income below 75% of the AGI threshold, $125,000 for specialty and high-value crops and $125,000 for other crops; and (2) for those at or above 75%, $900,000 for specialty and high-value crops and $250,000 for other crops. (Thus, total payments are capped at 90% of qualified losses for insured/NAP participants or 70% for uninsured producers.) The Secretary administers both indemnity- and revenue-based applications simultaneously.

This section authorizes appropriations to the Secretary of such sums as are necessary to carry out the Act for FY2025 through FY2030. Of those amounts made available for each fiscal year, the Secretary may use not more than 1% for administrative costs.