USDA’s Farm Service Agency announces sign-up date for disaster assistance programs

WASHINGTON - U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency Administrator Juan M. Garcia announced today that farmers and ranchers can sign-up for disaster assistance programs, re-established and strengthened by the 2014 farm bill, beginning Tuesday.
The Livestock Indemnity Program (LIP) and the Livestock Forage Disaster Program (LFP) will provide payments to eligible producers for livestock deaths and grazing losses that have occurred since the expiration of the livestock disaster assistance programs in 2011, and including calendar years 2012, 2013 and 2014.
“Looking back at the time between now and when the programs expired in 2011, we’ve had just about everything nature could come up with thrown at us - extreme cold, heat, blizzards, drought, you name it,” North Dakota FSA State Executive Director Aaron Krauter stated in a release.
Krauter said producers who experienced losses are encouraged to bring records documenting those losses to their local FSA county office.