Bourbon County among those expected to be named federal disaster areas

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, Secretary of Agriculture Dale Rodman and Water Office Director Tracy Streeter welcomed an announcement that 82 Kansas counties -- including Bourbon -- will be declared federal disaster areas by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, making agricultural producers eligible for disaster assistance programs.

Doug Niemeir, county executive director with Farm Service Agency, said the main benefits of the disaster declaration, expected to be made official today, are grazing on Conservation Reserve Program, or CRP, land, and eligibility for low-interest disaster loans.

In place for more than 20 years, USDA streamlined the federal disaster designation process to speed it up. The designation makes farmers and ranchers eligible for Farm Service Agency low-interest emergency loans. This process update resulted in the designation of 1,016 primary counties nationwide as disaster areas effective today. Specifically, 66 Kansas counties will be declared as primary disaster areas and 16 contiguous counties will also receive disaster designations. Brownback said this update is a step in the right direction to provide timely assistance to agricultural producers, the release said.

"Farmers and ranchers are at the mercy of Mother Nature and many of our Kansas producers are struggling right now from the ongoing extreme heat and lack of moisture," Brownback said in the release. "We welcome these commonsense updates from USDA and will continue working to make sure farmers and ranchers have access to the resources they need to cope with crop losses and impacts on livestock."

Agricultural producers from the 82 Kansas counties declared as disaster areas will be eligible for emergency FSA loans. The current loan interest rate, set in 1993 at 3.75 percent, was reduced to 2.25 percent by USDA. The department also lowered the rental payment reduction when landowners use CRP acres for emergency grazing and haying from 25 percent to 10 percent this year.

"That can help people short on feed," Niemeir said. What would help more people is if the area went from a D2 to a D3 drought designation, which would allow producers to hay their CRP land. The Drought Monitor is released every Thursday by the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln.

Bourbon County's largest crop in number of acres is grass used for hay or grazing. The largest planted crop is soybeans, followed by wheat and corn.

"This is the best wheat year we've ever had," Niemeir said, with amazingly high yields. "The price was good, too. We plant winter wheat in this area. You plant it in September or October for the next year and harvest it in late June or July. This year, the harvest was about a month early but the yields were extremely good. The wheat crop was the best I've ever seen in my life."

"The drought we're now facing is affecting everything else," he added. "Last year was kind of a short 4-H production year." Grass for grazing and hay was also short and this year is also expected to be short, which will impact how much feed is available to "see us through winter."

Kansas disaster

designations:

Primary counties:

Allen, Anderson, Barber, Barton, Bourbon, Butler, Chautquaua, Cheyenne, Clark, Coffey, Comanche, Cowley, Crawford, Decatur, Edwards, Elk, Finney, Ford, Gove, Graham, Grant, Gray, Greeley, Greenwood, Hamilton, Harper, Harvey, Haskell, Hodgeman, Kearney, Kingman, Kiowa, Labette, Lane, Linn, Logan, Lyon, McPherson, Meade, Montgomery, Morton, Neosho, Ness, Norton, Pawnee, Phillips, Pratt, Rawlins, Reno, Rice, Rooks, Scott, Sedgwick, Seward, Sheridan, Sherman, Stafford, Stanton, Stevens, Sumner, Thomas, Trego, Wallace, Wichita, Wilson and Woodson

Contiguous counties:

Chase, Cherokee, Dickinson, Ellis, Ellsworth, Franklin, Marion, Morris, Miami, Osage, Osborne, Rush, Russell, Saline, Smith and Wabaunsee.