WASHINGTON, D.C. — The USDA has approved nearly $308 million in disaster assistance for 33 states, including Puerto Rico, to help farmers, landowners and communities rebuild land damaged by floods, drought, tornadoes and other natural disasters last year.

“Landowners, individuals and communities have endured incredible hardships because of the intensity and volume of natural disasters that have impacted their livelihoods,” said USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack on Jan. 18. “America’s farmers and rural communities are vitally important to our nation’s economy, producing the food, feed, fiber and fuel that continue to help us grow.”

The USDA emergency aid package totaled $307,576,590. Funded by the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Emergency Watershed Protection Program (EWP), the Farm Service Agency’s (FSA) Emergency Conservation Program (ECP) and Emergency Forest Restoration Program (EFRP), states can also use the funds for emergency recovery measures, Vilsack said.

“At the same time, this assistance keeps farmers on the farm, ranchers on the ranch and landowners on their land, helping to keep American agriculture profitable,” he said.

While Utah and Missouri received the most funding (($60,267,801 and $48,920,773, respectively), local states also receiving funding include: Indiana: $195,827; Iowa: $5,870,000; Kentucky: $1,710,600; Ohio: $3,139,400; and Tennessee: $10,849,351.

What’s more, more than $20 million in emergency assistance has been reserved for Iowa and Nebraska alone to help residents recover from the Missouri River flooding and other natural disasters. Iowa will be receiving $10.8 million in ECP funds and Nebraska will get $1.57 million in EWP funds.

Vilsack said the EWP program will contribute $215.7 million to provide financial and technical assistance to address public safety and restoration efforts on private, public and tribal lands. Typical projects funded under the EWP include removing debris from waterways, protecting eroded stream banks, reseeding damaged areas and, in some cases, purchasing floodplain easements on eligible land.

The ECP program will contribute $80 million to U.S. producers to help remove debris from farmland, restore livestock fences and conservation structures, provide water for livestock during periods of severe drought and grade and shape farmland damaged by a natural disaster.

According to the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation, last summer’s devastating flooding on the Missouri River caused an estimated $207 million in lost crop sales (about 200,000 acres) and related economic activity in six western Iowa counties bordering the river.

Teresa Ann Miller, executive director of Monona County Economic Development Partnership for Growth in Onawa, Iowa, reported the repair of the county’s flood-affected infrastructure has been estimated at $1.4 million. At this time, she said, the county’s FEMA Project Worksheets are waiting approval for work already completed, as well as some due to be completed this year.

“Discussion continues on the state level about the RUTF (Road Use Tax Fund) and possible adoption of a gas tax to offset some of the rising costs for infrastructure repair,” she said last Thursday. “At any rate, it seems clear to me that without good infrastructure, economic development will be stunted.”

FSA county committees will determine eligibility based on site inspections of damaged land and considering the type and extent of damage. For land to be eligible, Vilsack said the natural disaster must have created “new conservation problems.”

In addition, the EFRP program will be giving $12 million to eligible owners of non-industrial private forestland for emergency measures to restore land damaged by a natural disaster.

Currently, the USDA’s crop insurance program insures 264 million acres, 1.14 million policies and $110 billion worth of liability on about 500,000 farms.

For more information on USDA disaster funding, contact your local FSA office.