USDA Offers Hurricane Relief Effort

WASHINGTON Sep 7/05 - SNS -- The USDA is releasing U.S. $170 million in emergency assistance to agricultural producers suffering from Hurricane Katrina.

In addition, USDA's Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) is implementing immediate changes to its Marketing Assistance Loan Program due to the hurricane. These changes will allow producers to obtain loans for 'on-farm' grain storage on the ground in addition to grain bins and other normally approved structures.

USDA is providing more than $20 million in Emergency Conservation Program (ECP) funds to help producers repair damage to their lands. ECP participants will receive cost-share assistance of up to 75 percent of the cost to implement approved emergency conservation practices such as debris removal and restoration of fences and conservation structures. The ECP is administered at the county level under the guidance of USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) state offices.

The following states and counties will receive ECP funding:

Alabama $855,000 for Baldwin, Choctaw, Clarke, Greene, Marengo, Mobile, Sumter and Washington

Louisiana - $12,452,000 for Acadia, Ascension, Assumption, Calcasieu, Cameron, East Baton Rouge, East Feliciana, Iberia, Iberville, Jefferson, Jefferson Davis, Lafayette, Lafourche, Livingston, Orleans, Plaquemines, Pointe Coupee, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. Helena, St. James, St. John, St. Martin, St. Mary, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, Terrebonne, Vermilion, Washington, West Baton Rouge and West Feliciana, and Allen, Avoyelles, Beauregard, Concordia, Evangeline and St. Landry

Mississippi - $7,102,000 for All Counties

Tennessee - $25,000 for Giles, Lawrence and Wayne

A total of $152 million in FSA’s Emergency Loan Program is available to eligible producers who have suffered at least a 30 percent reduction in crop production or have sustained physical losses to buildings, chattel or livestock. Farmers and ranchers have eight months from the date of a presidential or secretarial disaster declaration to apply for low-interest agency loans.

USDA's CCC is implementing changes to its Marketing Assistance Loan Program to allow producers to obtain loans for 'on-farm' grain storage on the ground in addition to grain bins and other normally approved structures. This action is designed to alleviate short-term logistical problems and support local cash prices above distressed levels as a result of the hurricane.

Grain producers in the U.S. are facing logistical challenges as port operations in the central Gulf Coast and lower Mississippi River have been hampered by Hurricane Katrina, which were already complicated by summer drought conditions in the upper Mississippi and Illinois River basins.

The changes to the Marketing Assistance Loan Program are consistent with emergency storage provisions already available to commercial warehouses and remain consistent with the existing CCC mandate that ensures the orderly marketing of U.S. farm commodities. CCC has authorized outside, on-farm storage of commodities which have been offered as collateral on non-recourse marketing assistance loans as long as such storage meets CCC guidelines. Commodities stored outside must be protected from animals and located so that water drainage will not seriously affect the quality and quantity of the commodity. Producers are responsible for ensuring that the quality of the commodity pledged as marketing assistance loan collateral is maintained during the entire loan period.