Implications of Disaster Assistance Reform for Non‐insured Crops

With recent crop insurance reform, disaster aid to producers of crops for which federal crop insurance was not available has changed significantly. A newly created Non‐insured Assistance Program (NAP) is a standing disaster aid program for non‐insured crops including most vegetables and some tree crops. To receive a payment, a farmer has to meet NAP's “area” triggered loss in addition to usual individual loss criteria. In this paper we examine the implications of these two‐tiered criteria for NAP payments in the context of California agriculture. Our analysis indicates that the area loss requirement likely results in a sharp reduction in disaster payments for non‐insured crops.