Opinion ID: 493940
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Disaster Payments Program

Text: 4 In 1981, Congress reauthorized the Special Disaster Payments Program (SDPP) for wheat and feed grain crops for the 1982 to 1985 crop years under the 1981 Agriculture Act. 2 In subsection (A) of the relevant provisions, the statute states that the Secretary of Agriculture shall make payments to producers on a farm who are either prevented from planting any portion of the acreage intended for wheat or feed grain or who are unable to harvest a full crop of wheat or feed grain because of drought, flood, or other natural disaster. Subsection (C) restricts eligibility for mandatory disaster payments to those farmers for whom crop insurance is not available under the Federal Crop Insurance Act with respect to their feed grain [or wheat] acreage. Finally, in subsection (D), the Secretary is allowed to make discretionary disaster payments to farmers for the loss or inability to plant a crop due to drought, flood, or other natural disaster. 5 The Federal Crop Insurance Act, 7 U.S.C. Secs. 1501-1520 (1982), referred to in subsection (C) of the mandatory disaster payments provisions, authorized the federal government's sale of subsidized all-risk insurance covering the loss of a crop to an unavoidable cause such as drought, flood, hail, frost, lightning, fire, insects, or disease. The 1980 amendments to the Act improved the prior existing crop insurance program by providing for the sale of all-risk crop insurance in all agricultural counties nationwide and for the expansion of the all-risk insurance to cover all important agricultural commodities. H.R.Rep. No. 430, 96th Cong., 2d Sess. 10 (1979). The all-risk crop insurance offered by the government provides coverage only for the loss of an already planted crop; it does not provide coverage for losses when a farmer is prevented from planting a crop. The Federal Crop Insurance Act provides that the all-risk insurance shall be against loss of the insured commodity    . 7 U.S.C. Sec. 1508(a) (emphasis added). Moreover, regulations governing the crop insurance program stipulate that all-risk crop insurance shall not attach to a farmer's acreage unless the acreage is planted by a date set for that county by the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation. 7 C.F.R. Sec. 401.111 (1985). Although the 1980 Act authorized the sale of specific risk insurance, that included coverage for losses due to a farmer's inability to plant a crop, 7 U.S.C. Sec. 1508(g), such insurance was exclusively offered under a pilot program designed to obtain actuarial data. See 7 U.S.C. Sec. 1508(i); 7 C.F.R. Sec. 442 (1984). In 1984, specific risk insurance was sold in only ten counties across the nation, none of which were located in South Dakota. 7 C.F.R. app. Sec. 442 (1984).