Farm Service Agency
Public Affairs Staff
1400 Independence Ave SW
Stop 0506, Room 3624-South
Washington, D.C. 20250-0506

 
Release No. 1511.08

 

 
Latawnya Dia (202) 720-7962

 
USDA Designates Eight California Counties as Primary Natural Disaster Areas
Decision Allows Farmers and Ranchers to Apply for USDA Assistance

 
WASHINGTON, Oct. 15, 2008 - The U.S. Department of Agriculture designated Colusa, Inyo, Lassen, Mono, San Benito, San Diego, San Luis Obispo and Trinity counties in California as primary natural disaster areas because of losses caused by drought that occurred during the period of Jan. 1, 2008, and continuing.

 
Farm operators in the California counties listed below also qualify for natural disaster benefits because their counties are contiguous. Those counties are:

 
Alpine
Lake
Plumas
Shasta
Butte
Lassen
Riverside
Sierra
Colusa
Madera
San Benito
Siskiyou
Fresno
Mendocino
San Bernardino
Sutter
Glenn
Merced
San Diego
Tehama
Humboldt
Modoc
San Luis Obispo
Trinity
Imperial
Mono
Santa Barbara
Tulare
Inyo
Monterey
Santa Clara
Tuolumne
Kern
Orange
Santa Cruz
Yolo
Kings

 
Farm operators in the counties listed below in the adjacent state of Nevada also qualify for natural disaster benefits because their counties are contiguous.

 
Nevada
Clark, Douglas, Esmeralda, Lyon, Mineral, Nye and Washoe

 
All counties listed above were designated natural disaster areas on Oct. 6, 2008, 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 has also made other programs available to assist farmers and ranchers, including 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 Web site at: http://www.fsa.usda.gov via the "News and Events" link.

 
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