USDA Update

by Rod Johnson

April 25, 2003

If you were unable to attend one of the meetings last week on the Community Collaborative Rain and Hail Study, you may still get involved by contacting the CSU Cooperative Extension office at 719-438-5321. We still have areas of the county not adequately covered by precipitation reporting stations. Your help in gathering rainfall data will assist us to better document FSA programs.

WE ARE ELIGIBLE! I need to correct what I had in my article last week. Kiowa County livestock producers ARE eligible for the new 2003 Colorado Non-Fat Dry Milk Livestock Feed Program. Other surrounding counties are also now eligible except for Lincoln County. The program only covers foundation livestock. Foundation livestock include cattle, sheep, goats and buffalo that were owned or controlled by an individual as of January 1, 2003 and are kept for the sole purpose of breeding and reproduction.

The Colorado Department of Ag was able to use an earlier Drought map that allowed Kiowa County to be eligible. Unlike the Cattle Feed Program administered by FSA last fall, the Colorado Department of Agriculture is administering this program.

Producers need to complete and sign a simple certification form on eligible livestock numbers and mail the form to the Colorado Department of Agriculture by no later than May 1, 2003. The FSA Office is mailing out a copy of the application form to all producers who our records show previously participated in the livestock programs. Further information (including applications for ranchers and feed dealers) is available on the Colorado Department of Agriculture's website at www.ag.state.co.us . Copies of the application form are also available at the Kiowa County FSA Office.

We have been getting questions about what producers need to do to get ready for the 2001/2002 Crop Disaster Program that is scheduled to begin June 6, 2003, really not much at this time. Due to the widespread drought and high loss of crops in Kiowa County, we should have nearly all of the records the FSA Office will need to process your application. Federal Crop Insurance will provide FSA with records for all insured crops and the FSA Office already has a significant amount of production (or lack thereof) records for noninsurable crops.

The biggest problem the FSA Office will have in processing Disaster Payments is that this will be in addition to the heavy workload of acreage reports this summer.