WASHINGTON, Oct. 12, 2011–The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has designated 27 counties in Iowa as natural disaster areas due to losses caused by the combined effects of severe storms, excessive rain, flooding, flash flooding, hail, high winds, lightning, tornadoes, landslides, mudslides, excessive heat and drought that began April 1, 2011, and continues.
Those counties are:
Clarke Jones
Davis Keokuk
Decatur Lee
Fremont Linn
Henry Louisa
Jefferson Lucas
"Iowa producers can continue to count on USDA to provide emergency assistance during difficult times," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. "America's farmers and rural communities are vitally important to our nation's economy, producing the food, feed, fiber and fuel that continue to help us grow and out-compete the rest of the world. President Obama and I are committed to using the resources at our disposal to reduce the impact these disasters have had on Iowa producers and help to get those affected back on their feet."
Farmers and ranchers in the following counties in Iowa also qualify for natural disaster assistance because their counties are contiguous:
Adams Cedar Dubuque
Appanoose Cherokee Grundy
Benton Clinton
Black Hawk Crawford Harrison Marion Story
Boone Dallas Ida Muscatine Union
Buchanan Delaware
Cass Des Moines Jackson
Farmers and ranchers in the following counties in Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska and South Dakota also qualify for natural disaster assistance because their counties are contiguous:
Illinois
Hancock Henderson Mercer Rock Island
Missouri
Atchison
Clark
Harrison
Nebraska
Burt
Cass
South Dakota
Union
All counties listed above were designated natural disaster areas Oct. 12, 2011, making all qualified farm operators in the designated areas eligible for low interest emergency (EM) loans from USDA's Farm Service Agency (FSA), provided eligibility requirements are met. Farmers in eligible counties have eight months from the date of the declaration to apply for loans to help cover part of their actual losses. FSA will consider each loan application on its own merits, taking into account the extent of losses, security available and repayment ability. FSA has a variety of programs, in addition to the EM loan program, to help eligible farmers recover from adversity.
USDA also has made other programs available to assist farmers and ranchers, including the Supplemental Revenue Assistance Program (SURE), which was approved as part of the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008; the Emergency Conservation Program; Federal Crop Insurance; and the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program. Interested farmers may contact their local USDA Service Centers for further information on eligibility requirements and application procedures for these and other programs. Additional information is also available online at http://disaster.fsa.usda.gov.
FSA news releases are available on FSA's website at www.fsa.usda.gov via the "News and Events" link.
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