Governor requests damage assessments for farms

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon today asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency to conduct damage assessment reports for all 114 Missouri counties and the city of St. Louis to gauge the extent of crop and livestock damage from excessive heat and severe drought conditions.
 
“The heat and drought will likely cause crop yields to decrease and livestock to be under greater stress,” Nixon said in a news release. “This year, many Missouri farmers have undergone a number of hardships caused by weather conditions. Hay is already in short supply, impacting livestock farmers. Timely damage assessments by the Farm Service Agency will help those farmers who have been affected recover more quickly.”
 
Nixon’s administration monitored drought conditions statewide throughout the spring and will continue to do so for the summer, the release said.
 
Requesting damage assessments is the first step in the process of declaring counties as primary disaster areas, which are defined as those counties that lose at least 30 percent of their estimated yield of a single crop, or where individual farmers suffer production losses of more than 30 percent. A disaster designation would allow eligible farmers to be considered for assistance via emergency loans from the FSA, the release said. Farmers in counties that are contiguous to primary disaster areas also could be eligible to receive help.

In the meantime, farmers who need to purchase hay for their livestock can access the Missouri Hay Directory online.

This isn’t the first time Missouri has sought assistance for farmers due to weather conditions. In October 2011, the five counties comprising the Springfield metropolitan statistical area were among 101 Missouri counties deemed eligible for federal disaster assistance as a result of excessive heat and drought last summer.