CT's $53M Farm Disaster Relief Grant Near Approval

Connecticut’s $53 million in federal farm disaster relief is close to reaching state farmers, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told a House appropriations panel Thursday.

Rollins made the assurance during a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s budget, where Rep. Rosa DeLauro pressed her on the status of the Farm Recovery and Support Block Grant program. Connecticut’s allocation represents roughly a quarter of the $220 million program, which was created to help smaller farming states that grow specialty crops and don’t typically benefit from the same federal commodity support as large Midwestern producers.

“It is, and I checked this morning. I think we are at the finish line for Connecticut after 30 meetings and a lot of back and forth,” Rollins said. “But yes, ma’am, we’re moving on that.”

The exchange was notably warmer than their last public confrontation on this topic. Last spring, Rollins and DeLauro got into a heated back-and-forth over the same program. Thursday’s hearing produced a more cooperative tone, though DeLauro made no secret of her impatience. “It’s now been 16 months since the block grant was created, and to my knowledge, not a single dime has been allocated to the eligible states,” she said.

Sixteen months. No money out the door.

DeLauro pushed Rollins for a specific timeframe. Rollins said she had ridden the elevator that morning with Undersecretary Richard Fordyce, who told her the Connecticut contract was at the finish line. “It should be very soon,” Rollins said, adding that “my understanding is it is moving.”

Rollins also told DeLauro she has her number if she wants updates directly.

Why CT Farmers Are Still Waiting

The block grant program was signed into law in late 2024 as part of a congressional disaster relief package targeting small and midsized farmers. It was designed specifically for states like Connecticut, which sits outside the traditional farm belt, grows specialty crops, and took significant hits from extreme weather in 2023 and 2024. Every New England state, plus Hawaii and Alaska, qualified for funds.

Connecticut’s agriculture sector, though small by national standards, is vital to dozens of towns across Tolland, Windham, and Litchfield counties. USDA data shows the state has roughly 5,500 farms covering around 380,000 acres, many of them small operations growing vegetables, fruit, dairy, and nursery products that don’t qualify for traditional commodity payments.

Getting this money out has been complicated. State and federal agriculture agencies have spent months in contract negotiations, a process that stalled further during last fall’s government shutdown. By the time those talks resumed, the program was already well past its expected rollout timeline. As CT Mirror reported, 30 separate meetings took place between state and federal officials trying to finalize the agreement that would let Connecticut open applications for farmers.

Once that contract is signed, the state’s Department of Agriculture will take the lead on distributing the funds directly to eligible farmers who suffered losses from qualifying weather events.

DeLauro’s Role and What’s at Stake

DeLauro, who serves as ranking member of the full House Appropriations Committee, was the driving force behind creating the Farm Recovery and Support Block Grant program. She has consistently used her position at appropriations hearings to keep the pressure on USDA to move the money.

For Connecticut farmers who’ve been waiting since late 2024, the relief can’t come soon enough. Weather-related crop losses, equipment damage, and soil erosion from 2023 and 2024 events have left many operations cash-strapped heading into the spring planting season. Federal assistance that arrives months after the damage doesn’t restore the losses, but it can help farms stay solvent long enough to recover over the next growing cycle.

The program’s structure, sending block grants to states rather than making individual farmers apply directly to USDA, was intended to speed distribution and let state agencies with local knowledge determine eligibility. That design hasn’t prevented the delays, but it does mean that once the federal contract clears, Connecticut can move quickly to open applications without waiting for Washington to process individual claims.

Rollins gave no specific date for when the contract will be finalized, but her comments Thursday were the clearest public signal yet that Connecticut’s piece of the $220 million program is about to break free from more than a year of bureaucratic back-and-forth.