WASHINGTON (DTN) -- U.S. Agriculture Deputy Secretary Stephen Vaden on Monday announced Stage 2 of the Supplemental Disaster Relief Program (SDRP) to help farmers who experienced a range of weather events in 2023 and 2024. He also said an announcement about aid for 2025 will be coming soon.

In a call to reporters on Monday, Vaden said Stage 2 will cover eligible crop, tree, bush and vine losses that were not covered under the Stage 1 program provisions, including non-indemnified (shallow loss), uncovered and quality losses.

Milk and on-farm stored crop losses will also be covered. The Milk Loss Program provides up to $1.65 million in payments to eligible dairy operations for milk that was dumped or removed without compensation from the commercial milk market because of a qualifying natural disaster event in 2023 and/or 2024.

Producers who suffered losses of eligible harvested commodities while stored in on-farm structures in 2023 and/or 2024 due to a qualifying natural disaster event may be eligible for assistance through the On-Farm Stored Commodity Loss Program, which provides for up to $5 million to impacted producers.

The enrollment period for Stage 2 opens Nov. 24 and closes April 30, 2026.

The Farm Service Agency is establishing block grants with Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine and Massachusetts that cover crop losses; therefore, producers with losses on land physically located in these states are not eligible for SDRP program payments.

Stage 1 covered losses for producers enrolled in the Federal Crop Insurance or the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program. Enrollment for that program is already open and will remain open until April 30, 2026.

The total amount available through both programs is $16 billion, of which $5.7 billion has already been distributed through Stage 1 to 381,000 producers, officials said.

In a news release, USDA added, "This is on top of over $9.3 billion in Emergency Commodity Assistance Program (ECAP) assistance to over 560,000 row-crop farmers and over $705 million in Emergency Livestock Relief Program (ELRP) assistance to over 220,000 ranchers."

During the call to reporters, Agriculture Undersecretary for Farm Production and Conservation Richard Fordyce noted there will not be any "progressive factoring," meaning no higher payments to farmers based on race or ethnicity.

Beneficiaries will have a "linkage requirement" of two years enrollment in crop insurance or the NAP program at 60%, Fordyce said.

Payment limitations will be in effect, but they will be higher for the high-value crops, the officials noted. The Stage 2 program is expected to cover specialty crops, which are higher in value, the officials added.

There will be a "factoring" system to decide the size of the payments, and if there is money left over after the applications are made, the payment factor will be adjusted, Fordyce said.

Asked about aid to farmers for 2025, Vaden said USDA is evaluating what aid is needed.

"Lots of things changed during the shutdown," Vaden said. He noted that President Donald Trump had negotiated new agreements with China, South Asia and Japan during the shutdown and said USDA will take those agreements into account when deciding how much aid is needed.

There have been reports that USDA has transferred $13 billion from the Commodity Credit Corporation to a fund controlled by Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to aid farmers who have suffered losses due to retaliation in reaction to the Trump administration's trade policies.

The 2025 announcement would have come sooner if the government had remained open, Vaden said, blaming Senate Democrats for keeping the government closed for 43 days.

Jerry Hagstrom can be reached at jhagstrom@nationaljournal.com

Follow him on social platform X @hagstromreport

(c) Copyright 2025 DTN, LLC. All rights reserved.