By DOUG GRAVES
Ohio Correspondent

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) has declared emergency loss loans will be available in eight Ohio counties due to excessive rains, flooding, flash flooding, hail, frost, lightning, high winds and tornadoes that occurred from Feb. 1-July 31.

Those primary counties include Adams, Allen, Brown, Butler, Fulton, Greene, Hamilton and Hancock counties.

Other counties eligible because they are contiguous are: Auglaize, Clark, Clermont, Clinton, Fayette, Hardin, Henry, Highland, Lucas, Madison, Montgomery, Pike, Preble, Putnam, Scioto, Seneca, Van Wert, Warren, Williams, Wood and Wyandot.

This approval is limited to applicants who suffered severe physical losses only. To qualify, farmers had to be unable to obtain credit from commercial sources.

Farmers in these eligible counties have eight months from Oct. 2 to apply for loans to help cover part or all of their actual losses. FSA takes into account each loan application on its own merits.

“We have farm loan teams set up across the state,” said Amy Harter, county executive director for FSA governing Butler, Hamilton and Warren counties in Ohio. “It’s a year by year thing. If we’ve had crop damage due to weather, we submit reports and send them to the state. There, the secretary of agriculture will determine if they declare the county a disaster area.”

The most recent Ohio damage occurred when winds from Hurricane Ike leveled corn in the state. But the biggest problem plaguing farmers and others, Harter said, has been the drought. “Ohio hasn’t had much rain since July and the result is flooding,” he said. “We file only those claims that have weather-related conditions that will eventually affect the yields in specific crops grown. And last year was a bad year for weather. Hopefully next year we’ll see decent weather patterns.”

FSA administers and manages farm commodity, credit, conservation, disaster and loan programs as laid out by Congress. These programs are designed to improve the economic stability of the agricultural industry and to help farmers adjust production to meet demand.

The USDA has also made other programs available to assist farmers, include the Emergency Observation Program, Federal Crop Insurance and the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program.
In addition, on Oct. 13 House Resolution 6849 was enacted and provides for an extension of the 2008 Direct and Counter-cyclical Program (DCP) enrollment deadline for farms with 10 base acres or fewer covered commodities not previously enrolled. Producers on farms with 10 base acres or fewer have until Nov. 26 to initiate and complete enrollment of a farm for 2008 DCP.