Emergency Livestock Relief Program (ELRP)

The Emergency Livestock Relief Program (ELRP) provides emergency relief payments to livestock producers who suffered losses due to drought, wildfire, or flooding in calendar years 2023 and/or 2024. Funded by the American Relief Act, 2025 ($2 billion nationally), ELRP is administered as two separate sub-programs with different eligibility and payment mechanics:

• ELRP 2023 and 2024 Drought and Wildfire: compensates ranchers who have an approved Livestock Forage Disaster Program (LFP) application for 2023 and/or 2024 grazing losses due to eligible drought, or whose permitted grazing on federally managed land was reduced due to wildfire. Payments (~$1 billion total) are issued automatically using existing LFP data — no separate application is required.

• ELRP 2023 and 2024 Flood and Wildfire: helps offset increased supplemental feed costs due to qualifying floods or wildfires on non-federally managed land in 2023 and/or 2024 (~$1 billion total). This component required an application; enrollment ended November 21, 2025.

Eligible Producers must have eligible livestock and meet 'qualifying disaster event' criteria for 2023 and/or 2024.

ELRP 2023/2024 Drought and Wildfire: Producers must have suffered grazing losses in a county rated by the U.S. Drought Monitor as having D2 (severe drought) for eight consecutive weeks, or D3 (extreme drought) or higher, during the normal grazing period in 2023, 2024, or both years, AND must have applied and been approved for the Livestock Forage Disaster Program (LFP) for the applicable year(s). Producers whose permitted grazing on federally managed land was reduced due to wildfire are also eligible if approved for LFP in 2023, 2024, or both.

ELRP 2023/2024 Flood and Wildfire: Livestock producers with qualifying flood or wildfire losses on non-federally managed land in 2023 and/or 2024. FSA has compiled a list of approved counties; producers in those counties are not required to submit supporting documentation. Producers in counties not on the approved list may still apply but must provide documentation that a qualifying flood or wildfire occurred where their livestock were located.

Payment Limit: The two ELRP components have a combined payment limit of $125,000 per program year; producers may request an increased limit of $250,000 via Form FSA-510.

For Flood and Wildfire, eligible producers do not include livestock auction facilities or those who only buy and sell livestock as intermediaries, and livestock in commercial feedlots or feedyards are not eligible.

• Flood and Wildfire: up to 60% of one month of calculated feed costs for a qualifying wildfire, or three months for a qualifying flood, using the same monthly feed cost calculation as the Livestock Forage Disaster Program (LFP).

• Drought and Wildfire: the producer's gross LFP payment for 2023 and/or 2024 multiplied by an ELRP payment factor. The initial factor is 35%, and FSA may issue a second payment if funds remain.

• The two programs share a combined payment limit of $125,000 per program year. Producers can ask for a higher limit of $250,000 with form FSA-510.

• Producers who applied had to file CCC-902, CCC-901 (if applicable), AD-1026 and FSA-510 (if applicable) with FSA by November 2, 2026 to be eligible for payment.

For ELRP 2023/2024 Drought and Wildfire: no application is required. FSA automatically issues payments using existing 2023/2024 Livestock Forage Disaster Program (LFP) application data (form CCC-853) already on file.

For ELRP 2023/2024 Flood and Wildfire: enrollment ended November 21, 2025. Producers applied through their local FSA county office; producers in approved counties did not need supporting documentation, and others had to document the qualifying event. Contact your local FSA office with questions about an existing application.

• Fact Sheet

• Drought monitor