The USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) today announced that the deadline for livestock producers to apply for assistance through the Emergency Livestock Relief Program for 2023 and 2024 Flood and Wildfire (ELRP 2023 and 2024 FW) is being extended to Nov. 21, 2025. The program is expected to provide approximately $1 billion in recovery benefits to producers whose livelihoods were adversely impacted by disrupted feed availability and poor forage conditions following catastrophic floods and wildfires in 2023 and 2024.
Qualifying Disaster Events
To streamline program delivery, FSA determined eligible counties with qualifying floods and wildfires in 2023 and 2024. For losses in these counties, livestock producers are not required to submit supporting documentation for floods or wildfire. A list of approved counties is available at fsa.usda.gov/elrp.
For losses in other counties, livestock producers may still be eligible for ELRP 2023 and 2024 FW but must provide supporting documentation to demonstrate that a qualifying flood or wildfire occurred in the county where the livestock were physically located or would have been physically located if not for the disaster event. FSA county committees will determine if the disaster event meets program requirements.
Acceptable documentation includes:
- Photographs documenting impact to livestock, land, or property
- Insurance documentation
- Emergency declaration reports
- News articles
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration storm event database records
- Other FSA disaster program participation records
- Other documentation determined acceptable by the FSA county committee
Livestock and Producer Eligibility
For ELRP 2023 and 2024 FW, FSA is using covered livestock eligibility similar to the criteria for LFP which includes weaned beef cattle, dairy cattle, beefalo, buffalo, bison, alpacas, deer, elk, emus, equine, goats, llamas, ostriches, reindeer, and sheep.
Wildfire assistance is available on non-federally managed land to participants who did not receive assistance through FSA’s Livestock Forage Disaster Program (LFP) and ELRP 2023 and 2024 for drought and wildfire.
Livestock producers can receive assistance for one or both years (2023 and 2024) and for multiple qualifying disaster events, if applicable. However, producers cannot exceed three months of assistance per producer, physical location county, and program year.
Payment Calculation
Eligible producers can receive up to 60% of one month of calculated feed costs for a qualifying wildfire or three months for a qualifying flood using the same monthly feed cost calculation that is used for LFP.
ELRP 2023 and 2024 for drought and wildfire and ELRP 2023 and 2024 FW have a combined payment limit of $125,000 for each program year. Producers who already received the maximum payment amount from ELRP 2023 and 2024 for drought and wildfire will not be eligible to receive an additional payment under ELRP 2023 and 2024 FW. Eligible producers may submit an FSA-510, Request for an Exception to the $125,000 Payment Limitation for Certain Programs, to be eligible for an increased payment limitation of $250,000, as applicable.
