Disaster Assistance Recovery Tool

Has your farm been impacted by a disaster? Use the USDA's Disaster Assistance Discovery Tool to find financial assistance in your area.

• Open to all agricultural producers; the tool determines eligibility for individual disaster programs.

No award ceiling, payment rate, or cost-share percentage is published — and none applies, because this is not itself a funding program. It is a free USDA questionnaire that routes you to the disaster programs you may qualify for: "Learn about USDA disaster assistance programs that might be right for you by completing five simple steps."

There is no application, no award and no cost to use it. The financial terms you actually care about belong to the programs it points you toward — for example the Emergency Conservation Program, Tree Assistance Program, Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program, Livestock Indemnity Program and FSA Emergency Loans — each of which sets its own rates and caps.

There is nothing to apply for here, and that is the point: this is a free self-service tool, not a funding program. Open it at https://www.farmers.gov/protection-recovery/disaster-tool and answer the questions. USDA's own description of what you are doing is "Learn about USDA disaster assistance programs that might be right for you by completing five simple steps." No form, no account, no login and no fee, and it is available any time — there is no round, no window and no deadline on the tool itself.

What it gives you, and what happens next. The output is a shortlist of the USDA disaster programs you may qualify for. Applying for those is a separate, offline step, and USDA states the route plainly on its Protection and Recovery page: "You can secure federal crop insurance through a crop insurance agent. For the other programs, you should contact your local USDA Service Center for information on how you can sign up or receive assistance."

So the sequence is: run the tool, write down the programs it names, then take that list to your local service center. Find yours with the Service Center Locator at https://www.farmers.gov/working-with-us/service-center-locator, which gives "contact information for your local service center and agency offices," and read https://www.farmers.gov/working-with-us/USDA-service-centers first for "Information about USDA Service Centers and how to prepare for your visit."

Two things worth doing before that visit. The tool has no deadline but the programs it finds do — check https://www.farmers.gov/working-with-us/program-deadlines, which lists "upcoming and ongoing national USDA program deadlines." And pull the paperwork early from https://www.farmers.gov/working-with-us/common-forms, which lets you "Browse common forms you may need to complete to work with USDA." If you have never worked with FSA, expect to establish farm records and a farm number at the service center before any disaster program can pay you.

Who to ask. For trouble with the tool or the website itself, farmers.gov publishes one address: "Contact techsupport@farmers.gov for help with this website." Questions about eligibility or about applying for the programs the tool identifies go to your local USDA Service Center, not to farmers.gov.

• Disaster Assistance Fact sheet (PDF)

• USDA Loan Assistance Tool