Federal Block Grant Program To Help CT Farms Impacted By Severe Weather

Will DellaCamera recently spent 871 miles on his green tractor – driving it from his Connecticut farm to Washington. He was delivering a message: Connecticut farmers, and farmers across the country, need help.

Now, help is on the way. 

When he got to Washington, DellaCamera parked his tractor outside the offices of the US Department of Agriculture, “to send a message loud and clear,” US Rep. Rosa DeLauro said. 

“I lost my whole farm,” DellaCamera said Monday, recalling how golf ball-sized ice chunks destroyed nearly his entire crop in about 13 minutes in August 2024. “I wasn’t just going there on a whim to get money.”

Instead, he went to share his story and similar stories from farms across Connecticut.

The hailstorm storm caused about $400,000 worth of damage for DellaCamera, DeLauro said. Insurance only covered about half of that. Many other farmers had similar stories to tell. 

“I knew that we needed to take action – and fast,” DeLauro said. “Too many farmers like Will are slipping through the cracks in our federal safety net.” 

DellaCamera’s trip to Washington brought together Connecticut’s congressional delegation and got the ball rolling for a new federal Farm Recovery and Support Block Grant Program, spearheaded by DeLauro. 

Small and medium-sized Connecticut farms impacted by severe weather events like the hailstorm or the extreme flooding in 2023 can now get some financial relief. 

DeLauro along with US Reps. John Larson and Joe Courtney, Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, agriculture officials, and local farm owners on Monday met at Millpond Gatherings in Northford to celebrate the passage of the farm recovery program, which will provide $220 million for impacted farms in New England, Alaska, and Hawaii. 

Connecticut has put forth a request to the USDA for nearly $84 million of those funds to recover storm damage losses and recoup administrative fees, DeLauro said.

Data on the number of farms were impacted in recent years has been collected by the state Department of Agriculture, and there were over 200 submissions to the state’s survey, DeLauro said. Total storm damage losses from 2023 and 2024 are estimated around $72 million. 

Each state will determine how extreme weather events have affected their communities and how to distribute the money. 

“This block grant is historic disaster aid for farmers in that it does not require having crop insurance or a national disaster declaration to receive aid,” DeLauro said. “This ensures that farmers left out of our farm safety net and those who suffer losses due to an extreme and localized weather event are not left with no ability to recoup their losses.”

The Farm Recovery and Support Block Grant focuses on ensuring equitable relief for states that often struggle to access traditional agricultural aid, officials said.

“Farmers across the country face the same lack of support,” DeLauro said. “This lack of support is one of the primary reasons Connecticut has lost 460 farms over the last five years. And we are leaving farmers high and dry when disaster strikes.”

DellaCamera agreed the state – and the country – is losing farms at “a faster rate than we should.”

He continued: “I’ve been asking for years to change some of these (federal) programs. Now, us farmers that suffered loss can recuperate and come out of this stronger than ever.”