Disaster-stricken farmers and ranchers in 2022 could receive substantially smaller Emergency Relief Program (ERP) payments. The discrepancy has initiated a dispute between Congress and USDA over the method used to calculate the payments. More than 60 Republican members of Congress sent a letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in criticism of USDA’s payment formula for the 2022 ERP.

However, USDA reports that Congress allocated $3.74 billion for a problem that is more than $10 billion or larger, thus capping losses dramatically. USDA also shared in response that more than 210,000 applications were submitted for ERP in 2022, and roughly 172,000 farmers will receive payments.

Read more on ERP payments here.