12.21.24

Hoeven Secures Disaster Assistance for North Dakota Farmers and Ranchers

WASHINGTON – Senator John Hoeven issued the following statement after Congress passed $33.5 billion in disaster assistance for the nation’s farmers and ranchers. Hoeven worked to include the agriculture assistance as part of negotiations to fund the government. The bill also provides a one-year extension of the Farm Bill.

“Our farmers and ranchers have faced severe challenges this year from both market conditions as well as wildfires and other natural disasters. This assistance for our producers is vital to keep their operations going and ensure that Americans continue to have access to high quality, low cost food,” said Hoeven “This assistance was necessary given the Democrats’ unwillingness to pass a farm bill that updated reference prices. We’ll continue our efforts to pass a strong farm bill that strengthens the farm safety net and keeps the farm in the farm bill.”  

As the Ranking Member of the Senate Agriculture Appropriations Committee, Hoeven secured funding to help address producer losses resulting from natural disasters and challenging markets. The package includes $10 billion to help farmers mitigate economic losses in 2024, $21 billion to assist farmers and ranchers experiencing losses due to natural disasters in 2023 and 2024 and an additional $2.5 billion for other agriculture disaster needs including assistance for Agricultural Research Service (ARS) facilities damaged by recent hurricanes.

North Dakota producers are estimated to receive more than $600 million for market losses. Specifically, the bill includes $2 billion for livestock losses including those due to wildfire, as well as $3 million to help domestic sugar producers by validating the testing of molasses imports at ports of entry to prevent the import of illegal sugar.

 

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