Preparing For Drought

I'm Lacy Gray with Washington Ag Today.

Following the Governor's drought declaration for much of the state, the FSA has received numerous calls inquiring about what the U.S. Department of Agriculture may be able to do to assist farmers and ranchers. USDA Farm Service Agency State Executive Director Judy Olson says that the FSA's disaster designation for drought comes through the U.S. Drought Monitor, which is a weekly map of drought conditions, and that they haven't yet reached that level to be considered a drought by the definition of their programs.

OLSON: The state's programs are triggered by the Governor's announcement, and certainly this is really really important for folks. The federal programs for drought will be triggered when they reach D-2 and or D-3, different programs have different triggers on this U.S. drought index, and then our programs are automatically triggered when that level is reached.

Olson explains what those programs are.

OLSON: The programs that could automatically be triggered are mostly the livestock programs, which have to do with feed and water. Producers should have already purchased their federal crop insurance, their independent crop insurance, and or their non-insured crop disaster program from FSA; those closing dates have already occurred. But anytime a producer thinks that they have a loss from any type of natural disaster, whether it's drought and they're not receiving timely moisture either through their irrigation or Mother Nature, or whether unseasonable freezes with these warm days, if cold weather should be triggered, they should actually talk to their FSA office and notify the county office of a potential loss.

That's Washington Ag Today.

I'm Lacy Gray with the Ag Information Network of the West.