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USDA declares SLO County agriculture disaster area

May 8, 2013

cattleThe United States Department of Agriculture has declared San Luis Obispo County an agricultural disaster area due to a recent drought.

On April 10, the USDA designated San Luis Obispo and Monterey counties as primary natural disaster areas because of a drought that lasted from February 12 to April 8.

As a result of the designation, farmers and ranchers who conduct family-sized farming operations in the two counties can apply for low interest loans from the USDA’s Farm Service Agency. The Farm Service Agency will make the special loans up to a maximum of $500,000 available until December 10.

“Our hearts go out to those California farmers and ranchers affected by recent natural disaster,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said. “President Obama and I are committed to ensuring that agriculture remains a bright spot in our nation’s economy by sustaining the successes of America’s farmers, ranchers and rural communities through these difficult times.”

The USDA also designated six counties surrounding San Luis Obispo and Monterey counties as contiguous agricultural disaster areas. Farmers and ranchers in Fresno, Kern, Kings, San Benito, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz counties can also apply for low-interest loans.

 


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Great just what they need more debt. Low interest is great but at some point you have to pay it back. May put you in a worse hole than you were already in. What I have found with most government programs is that they are cumbersome to access, hard to get off of, and almost never accomplish the stated goal. All they do is make you more dependant on government. One bail out leads to another and it never stops.


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Wow! Just googled it. I’ve clearly been in the wrong business for the past 40 years. I always wondered how those poor struggling farmers, those strong, independent , and patriotic bastions of the American way, did it. Maybe they’re not really like what the popular image is of them. Maybe being one of the major facilitators of illegal immigration and living off of the government teat isn’t such a noble thing after all


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Must be a bunch of slacker, government teat suckers on this site.


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Google San Luis Obispo farm subsidies and you will see who is getting the money and how much.


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Curious to know if this includes subsidy to the vineyards?


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Interesting question. What if it does include vineyards? Either way, they’re farmers just the same. Are farmers with vineyards contributing more than row crop farmers to the state economy? By and large, yes.


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Vineyards to support creation of wine are not a form of agriculture and should not be considered for agricultural subsidies. Wine is a luxury / recreational product and not part of the agriculture we should be subsidizing….And i am a wine drinking taxpayer


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Agriculture welfare. Where was the relief for all of the construction workers over the last couple of years or all of the other businesses that went out of business. Yes there is a drought here but let’s move those cattle back to the mid-west or east where the rainfall has been substantial. People need to go on line and discover all of the government assistance that is given yearly to the local ranchers and farmers. The amount of money that is delved out to these already wealthy people is astounding and disgraceful.


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Yep. Government screws up everything it touches.


The bureaucrats think they know just what to do, how to do it, how much to do it, to whom to do it, when to do it, in what industry to do it, how much to pay for it, what interest to charge, and for how long.


Yeah, and I’m Lincoln’s grandfather.


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Yup.


http://farm.ewg.org/index.php


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There should be no government relief to ANY industry, period.


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How, if at all are ranchers and farmers govt. subsidies affected by such a drought? If production is severely impacted resulting in diminished output, are the subsidies reduced as well? Or in addition to the low interest loans, are they increased?


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Good questions, and one question leads to another, a long series of them.


The fact is that the government is working BLIND. It has no idea of what resources should be allocated where, or in what quantities, or at what price.


In a planned economy, economic calculation is impossible.


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…….for the government.


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