During the 2018 and 2019 crop years, 707 U.S. counties faced extreme (D3) drought levels or worse, according to the Texas A&M Agriculture and Food Policy Center (AFPC). In response, Congress expanded USDA's Wildfire Hurricane Indemnity Program Plus (WHIP+) to include drought loss, which is good news for Southwest growers.

The Wildfires Hurricanes Indemnity Program (WHIP) is a USDA disaster payment program created in 2017 to offset losses from wildfires and hurricanes. In June of 2019, Congress passed the Additional Supplemental Appropriations for Disaster Relief Act of 2019, which led to the creation of WHIP+.

"Additional money from the original WHIP program was leftover, so the WHIP+ program was expanded to cover additional disaster events in 2018 and 2019 (including drought, excess moisture and quality losses due to a qualifying disaster), which impacts a large part of the Southwest," says National Cotton Council's Vice President of Economics and Policy Analysis Jody Campiche.

"In 2018 and 2019, we have a lot of Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas counties that will qualify for WHIP+ coverage," Campiche says. "USDA hasn't released all of the implementation details yet, but they will be coming out soon."

To qualify, growers must farm in a county rated D3 (extreme drought) or higher by the U.S. Drought Monitor for the 2018 and/or 2019 crop years (Fig. 1), says Bart Fischer, AFPC co-director & research assistant professor, Department of Agricultural Economics, Texas A&M University. "We're still waiting on USDA to put out all of the rules. Until then, everything's preliminary."

Below is the WHIP+ development timeline, according to the AFPC publication, "Overview of Drought Relief Provisions in the FY2020":

WHIP+

A few things to know about WHIP+, according to the AFPC document, include:

"This infusion of working capital comes at a precarious time for many producers and their creditors who have suffered from a six-year slump in the farm economy," says Fischer. "For those producers impacted by extreme drought or worse, this will be welcome news."

Campiche and Fischer were guest speakers at the 2020 Red River Crops Conference in Altus, Okla., in mid-January. To view the AFPC document, log onto http://bit.ly/2txne9F.