COLUMBUS — U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack has designated 10 counties in Ohio as primary agricultural natural disaster areas, due to multiple disasters including excessive rain, flooding, flash flooding, high winds, hail, freeze, and frost that occurred April 1, 2009 through July 1, 2009.
Twenty-two counties were designated as contiguous counties. In addition two counties in Pennsylvania, nine counties in West Virginia, and four counties in Kentucky were designated contiguous counties.
The primary counties in Ohio are Ashtabula, Athens, Brown, Gallia, Jefferson, Lake, Lawrence, Morgan, Muskingum, and Washington.
The contiguous counties in Ohio are Adams, Belmont, Carroll, Clermont, Clinton, Columbiana, Coshocton, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Guernsey, Harrison, Highland, Hocking, Jackson, Licking, Meigs, Monroe, Noble, Perry, Scioto, Trumbull, and Vinton.
Contiguous counties in Pennsylvania are Crawford and Erie. Contiguous counties in West Virginia are Brooke, Cabell, Hancock, Mason, Ohio, Pleasants, Tyler, Wayne, and Wood.
USDA assistance
This designation makes farmers in both primary and contiguous counties eligible to be considered for assistance from the a href=”http://www.fsa.usda.gov/”>Farm Service Agency.
This assistance includes Farm Service Agency emergency loans. The farm must have suffered at least a 30 percent loss in crop production because of the disaster in comparison to the previous three years’ production history.
Other eligibility stipulations are related to credit history, collateral, and lack of credit from commercial sources.
Deadline
Farmers in eligible counties have until April 26 to apply for an emergency loss loan to help cover part of all of their actual losses.
Additional information is available by contacting a local FSA office or from www.fsa.usda.gov.
