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Fruit and nut farms could get permanent disaster aid
The Senate proposal would turn one-off emergency help into a lasting safety net for growers whose crops can be wiped out by weather, pests or disease.
For California growers of fruits, vegetables and nuts, a bad storm or outbreak can wipe out income before a season has time to recover. A Senate proposal from Sen. Adam Schiff, with Sen. Alex Padilla as cosponsor, would make that kind of help permanent instead of leaving specialty-crop farms to rely on one-off disaster relief.
The bill would amend the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 to provide permanent disaster assistance for specialty crops. In plain terms, it is an attempt to turn emergency aid into a standing backstop for a part of agriculture that often has less room to absorb a sudden loss.
Why specialty crops are different
Specialty crops, which include fruits, vegetables and nuts, can be unusually exposed to fast-moving damage from weather, pests and disease. When the crop fails, growers can lose not just the harvest but the revenue that pays workers, suppliers and lenders.
That is why the proposal matters: it would give growers a predictable federal backstop instead of making them wait for each disaster to be handled from scratch. The bill does not lay out a payment formula or eligibility rules, so the details of who would qualify and how much help they would receive are not yet defined.
A narrower fix with a wide reach
The point is not to rewrite farm policy from top to bottom. It is to make sure specialty-crop growers are not left improvising after each new disaster, with federal help arriving only after the damage has already done its work.
For farms that live close to the edge of a single bad season, permanence is the real change. It is the difference between hoping relief comes through and knowing the safety net is already there.