Non-Substantive Change Request Memo to Increase Respondent/Responses for ECAP Applicants

DATE: March 17, 2025

TO: Laurel Havas, OMB Desk Officer

FROM: Rachelle Ragland Greene, USDA/OCIO Desk Officer

RE: Change Justification Request for Approval to revise U.S. Department of Agriculture Generic Solution for Funding Opportunity Announcements Approved Generic OMB Clearance Number: 0503-0028; Expiration Date: 10/31/2027.

This change justification requests changes to increase the number of respondents, responses and burden hours in the U.S. Department of Agriculture Generic Solution for Funding Opportunity Announcements.

Emergency Commodity Assistance Program (ECAP) will use $10 billion in funds authorized by Section 2102 of Division B of Title I of the American Relief Act, 2025 (Pub. L. 118-158) to issue 1-time economic assistance payments to eligible producers of eligible commodities for the 2024 crop year. These payments will help producers of eligible commodities cope with losses from natural disasters and a difficult farm economy and will help preserve family farms and ranches across the country while also continuing to ensure food and agricultural security for our nation. Due to this announcement, the agency is requesting to increase burden activities to ensure the agency stays in compliance.

The Administration’s goal is to launch on or before May 20, 2025; however, FSA intends to accept ECAP applications on the of Federal Register publication date (target publication March 19, 2025) through August 15, 2025. We anticipate that there will be approximately 688,500 ECAP Applications one per applicant for a total of 688,500 estimated total annual responses, and, 71,310 estimated total annual burden hours for this activity.

The currently approved burden estimates are 77,500 respondents, 77,500 total annual responses and 1,550,000 total annual burden hours. Unfortunately, there are not enough respondents to cover this request; therefore, USDA seeks approval to increase the respondents and responses necessary to fulfill this requirement. See the Figure 1 table below:

FIGURE 1:

BURDEN CATOGORY	RESPONDENTS	RESPONSES
Currently Approved Burden OMB Inventory for this collection	77,500	77,500
ECAP One-Time Only Proposed Burden Needed	688,500	688,500
New Total Proposed Burden	766,000	766,000

If there are any questions, please email me at Rachelle.Ragland-Greene@USDA.Gov.

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