By NANCY VORIS
Indiana Correspondent INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — After severe summer floods in which farmers saw hay bales float like ducks down a river, the USDA has allocated $77 million in Emergency Conservation Program (ECP) funds to rehabilitate damaged land.
Hard-hit Indiana counties will receive more than $13 million in funding. Those counties are Bartholomew, Brown, Lay, Daviess, Decatur, Dubois, Fountain, Gibson, Greene, Hendricks, Jackson, Jennings, Johnson, Knox, Lawrence, Martin, Monroe, Morgan, Owen, Parke, Pike, Putnam, Randolph, Rush, Shelby, Sullivan, Vermillion and Vigo.
Also receiving funds are: Illinois, $447,000; Kentucky, $67,000; Michigan, $59,000; Ohio, $375,000; and Tennessee, $2,758,000.
The funds will provide producers additional resources to remove debris from farmland, restore fences and conservation structures, provide water for livestock in drought situations and grade and shape damaged farmland.
For land to be eligible, the natural disaster must create new conservation problems that if untreated, will impair or endanger the land; materially affect the land’s productive capacity; represent unusual damage that, except for wind erosion, is not of the type likely to recur frequently in the same area; and would be so costly to repair that federal assistance will be required to return the land to productive agricultural use.
All of the above conditions must be met for eligibility. Conservation problems existing prior to the disaster are not eligible for cost-share assistance.
Farm Service Agency (FSA) county committees determine land eligibility based on on-site inspections of damage, taking into account the type and extent of damage. Producers should check with their local FSA offices regarding ECP sign-up periods.
Indiana FSA Executive Director Kenneth Culp encourages producers who have suffered environmental damage not covered by this allocation to contact their local USDA Service Center to sign up for any future allocations under the ECP or other disaster programs. More information is available at local FSA service centers and online at www.fsa.usda.gov |
