USDA Update

By Rod Johnson

August 29, 2003

Soil moisture conditions in most parts of the county remain very dry and summer crops are drying up. Planting conditions for winter wheat are not good. Precipitation for July and August are well below average for the county. We just can't seem to get this drought cycle broken.

The FSA and NRCS Offices, will be closed Monday, September 1, for the Labor Day Holiday. Offices will reopen for business on Tuesday, September 2.

Don't forget, Tuesday, September 2, is the final date to obtain 2004 Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance for fall planted crops such as uninsurable winter wheat, winter barley, winter triticale, rye and fall canola. There is a $100 per crop (maximum $300 per county) application fee.

Be sure to contact the FSA Office for loss adjustment information BEFORE you GRAZE planted forage sorghums, cane, millet, etc if you have a Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance (NAP) application for 2003. We may need you to panel-off some representative areas in the field to allow for appraisals at a later date.

There has been a slight change in the policies for Managed Haying & Grazing of CRP acreage. There is a requirement to leave 25% of the acreage ungrazed for wildlife. Last week we reported this was 25% of all contracts a producer had. The change is that a producer must leave 25% of contiguous CRP contracts ungrazed. If a producer has an isolated CRP contract, then 25% of that contract must be fenced off and left ungrazed. If two CRP contracts are contiguous (touching each other) then the 25% could be left ungrazed on one contract and the other contract grazed entirely. NRCS will work with each of you to determine the exact acreage you will be allowed to graze.

2001/2002 CDP

We are hoping to get the first 2001/2002 Crop Disaster Program (CDP) payments issued this week. We finally think we have a fairly good process in place to get applications processed and paid. It has been and still is a very complicated and confusing program to administer. We are wanting to make sure we are doing it right! There is so much room for error in processing we are having every application checked two and three times. We finally received a yield and payment rate for sweet sorghum forage but it does not appear to be correct. Applications that involve forage are still being held until this is checked out. We have been working on other crops for these producers. As soon as we get your applications initially processed, we will call you to come into the office to complete the forms.