USDA Designates Eight Counties in Iowa as Primary Natural Disaster Areas

The counties are:

Iowa                           Johnson                       Madison                      Sioux

Jackson                        Louisa                         Scott                          Washington

Farmers and ranchers in the following counties in Iowa also qualify for natural disaster assistance because their counties are contiguous:

Adair                          Des Moines                 Keokuk                       Plymouth

Benton                        Dubuque                     Linn                           Polk

Cedar                          Guthrie                        Lyon                           Poweshiek

Cherokee                     Henry                          Muscatine                    Tama

Clarke                         Jefferson                     O'Brien                        Union

Clinton                        Jones                          Osceola                       Warren

Dallas

Farmers and ranchers in the following counties in Illinois and South Dakota also qualify for natural disaster assistance because their counties are contiguous:

Illinois

Carroll                Henderson          Jo Daviess          Mercer                Rock Island

South Dakota

Lincoln                        Union

All counties listed above were designated natural disaster areas Jan. 18, 2011, making all qualified farm operators in the designated areas eligible for low interest emergency (EM) loans from USDA's Farm Service Agency (FSA), provided eligibility requirements are met. Farmers in eligible counties have eight months from the date of the declaration to apply for loans to help cover part of their actual losses. FSA will consider each loan application on its own merits, taking into account the extent of losses, security available and repayment ability. FSA has a variety of programs, in addition to the EM loan program, to help eligible farmers recover from adversity.

USDA also has made other programs available to assist farmers and ranchers, including the Supplemental Revenue Assistance Program (SURE), which was approved as part of the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008; the Emergency Conservation Program; Federal Crop Insurance; and the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program. Interested farmers may contact their local USDA Service Centers for further information on eligibility requirements and application procedures for these and other programs. Additional information is also available online at http://disaster.fsa.usda.gov.

FSA news releases are available on FSA's website at http://www.fsa.usda.gov via the "News and Events" link.