USDA Update

By Rod Johnson

November 5, 2004

Wind, snow and freezing temperatures dominated the weather picture this past week. The high winds have caused a lot of tumble weeds to fill portions of milo, corn and sunflower fields, buried fences, windbreaks and generally created a real mess to clean up. Around farmsteads, the weeds pose a fire hazard and need to be cleaned out. Snow amounts were heaviest in the center of the county.

The USDA Service Center along with other Federal and state agencies will be closed on Thursday, November 11, in observance of the Veteran’s Day Holiday. Also the office will have only one or two employees available the entire week of November 8-12 due to 3 employees being involved in training in Colorado Springs. Please try to schedule all office visits, except for Loan Deficiency Payment applications (LDP), the following week of November 15.

The FSA office is beginning concentrating on taking 2005 Direct and Counter-cyclical Program (DCP) signup the week of November 15 for those producers who wish to receive advance payments in this tax year BEFORE January 1, 2005. It would be a big help if you would call the FSA Office BEFORE you come in to signup so we can get your records and contracts ready. This will save you time. We are asking all producers who want advance payments AFTER, January 1, 2005 to please wait until December to request contracts for signup. FSA has established a new web-based signup process where you should be able to signup your farms from home. The problem is that his process is still in the introductory stage and does not have all of the bugs worked out so it would be best to contact the FSA Office for signup at this time. To be able to access your farm records at home you will first need to contact the FSA Office to get authority and passwords to use this sign-up option from home. We will let you know when this new process is fully operational.