March 7, 2023
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In the last 20 years, severe storms or flooding have caused nearly a third of crop losses. Such impacts can upend for years the livelihoods of farmers, ranchers, producers, and rural communities across America.
In 2019 alone, record rains cost the Midwest an estimated $6 billion in crop sales, after a shortened growing season delayed crop planting and left millions of acres unplanted across the region.
Meanwhile, the rural communities that face these impacts are typically underserved, lacking the resources to respond to and adapt to challenges posed by stronger storms and more frequent flooding. Fortunately, opportunities abound for farmers to address these problems — and perhaps the most significant opportunity in the next five years is currently being debated in the halls of Congress: the farm bill.
With the authorization of the 2018 Farm Bill set to expire September 30, the American Flood Coalition believes Congress’s reauthorization of the legislation presents a huge opportunity for innovative solutions that empower farmers, improve soil health, and boost flood resilience.
The Farm Bill influences how and what kind of food is grown and ways in which crops are protected from disasters. Programs in the bill also directly help farmers build resilience against flooding, including through research and education on sustainable farming.
With flood impacts in mind, AFC unveiled four tested, community-driven, and bipartisan priorities to advance flood resilience in the upcoming U.S. Farm Bill. Together, these priorities will safeguard our food supply against flooding and other disasters, while helping producers and rural communities better prepare for, respond to, and recover from flooding.
4 opportunities in the Farm Bill to boost flood resilience
Recognizing this opportunity, the American Flood Coalition identified four ways lawmakers can incorporate flood resilience into the Farm Bill. These opportunities aim to foster innovative flood solutions and policies that shift federal disaster spending to building resilience before a disaster strikes. They also reflect our unique approach to finding bipartisan solutions to floods — wherever and however they may occur.
Here are four major opportunities for action on flood resilience in the upcoming Farm Bill:
1. Accelerate USDA disaster assistance, so that rural communities and agricultural producers can recover swiftly after a disaster.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture administers several disaster programs that help farmers, ranchers, and foresters get back on their feet after a disaster. One such program is the Emergency Watershed Protection (EWP) program, a vital recovery program for local communities to address pressing threats to life and property.
The Emergency Watershed Protection program provides financial and technical assistance to local communities and landowners to remove debris, protect eroded streambanks, fix damaged drainage facilities, repair levees and structures, repair conservation practices, and purchase floodplain easements. Congress appropriated $435 million in 2019 for EWP recovery work related to Hurricanes Michael and Florence, wildfires, tornadoes, floods, and other natural disasters.
Lawmakers should encourage USDA, rural communities, and producers to consider long-term resilience when undertaking recovery work. EWP should allow communities to make smart, cost-effective investments that restore the watershed while making critical improvements so they can hold up against the next disaster.
2. Make flooding a priority in USDA conservation programs so producers can lead in innovative flood resilience.
USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service has conservation programs that provide financial and technical assistance for producers to adopt innovative conservation practices that reduce flooding. Programs like the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and the Regional Conservation Partnership Program can advance flood resilience and improve soil health and water quality.
With the right funding in place, more farmers could take up practices like multi-cropping, a regenerative agriculture practice in which they plant cover crops, or added crops that improve soil quality. A recent pilot funded by the American Flood Coalition found that multi-cropping can reduce flooding by as much as 60%.
Unfortunately, with complex eligibility, application, and documentation requirements to fund such projects, many rural and underserved producers are left in the cold when it comes to the latest innovations in agricultural practices.
USDA field staff, extension service agents, and technical service providers are critical in assisting producers with adapting to flooding. Lawmakers should ensure USDA has the staff and training to support producers as they carry out agency-approved conservation practices that boost flood resilience, like restoring wetlands or planting cover crops and buffer vegetation.
3. Fund applied research at USDA to understand how conservation practices can reduce flooding.
When it comes to policy solutions for conservation and flood resilience, one size does not fit all. Therefore federal, state, and local leaders would all benefit from access to data that identifies what works and doesn’t work in the field.
Although USDA collects data across all its agencies, it struggles to quantify outcomes concerning conservation, productivity, economic impact, and resilience across its programs. This is especially true of flood outcomes: Because flood reduction is often cited as a co-benefit and not the primary outcome of conservation practices, USDA researchers spend less time trying to understand flooding, as well as how flood resilience measures can be applied to agriculture. But these co-benefits can end up making a real difference for communities on the front lines of flooding.
The first step to getting innovative conservation practices on the ground is having the data in hand about what works. By strengthening agricultural data collection, research, and distribution, USDA could better connect farmers and ranchers with the most effective conservation practices that reduce their flood risk.
4. Strengthen USDA’s small watershed programs, empowering communities to address flooding across jurisdictional boundaries and at the watershed scale.
USDA has some of the federal government’s only flood prevention programs that operate on a watershed scale, which is important given that flooding does not stop at jurisdictional boundaries. The Watershed and Flood Prevention Operations (WFPO) program, also referred to by its public law designation PL-566, helps communities protect and restore watersheds up to 250,000 acres, often through the use of small earthen dams. This program provides funding and technical assistance for watershed projects that assist with flooding, water quality, sediment and erosion control, water supplies and water-based recreation.
The 2018 Farm Bill brought $50 million in annual mandatory funding to WFPO, ensuring valuable projects can more easily flow from planning to implementation. Lawmakers should continue to increase funding for WFPO to support rural communities in planning, designing, implementing, and rehabilitating critical watershed projects.
Connecting local voices to federal decision makers
With the Farm Bill slated for reauthorization, this year presents an excellent opportunity to secure long-term funding for flood resilience programs. And as a Coalition that works with a diverse range of leaders to advance solutions to flooding, the American Flood Coalition has a unique ability to elevate tested solutions and local perspectives to federal decision makers.
AFC will work all year with farming communities and Congress to identify smart, efficient ways to use the Farm Bill to boost resilience across farmlands nationwide. Importantly, all the above opportunities emphasize community-driven solutions that center on farmers. If carried out, these opportunities will help small, rural communities to not only recover faster and stronger from floods but also be better prepared for the next disaster.
