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July 26, 2012

56 counties designated disaster areas

STILLWATER — Francie Tolle, Oklahoma State Executive Director for the Farm Service Agency, announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has designated 56 counties in Oklahoma as primary natural disaster areas due to losses caused by extreme drought.

Those counties are: Alfalfa, Atoka, Beaver, Beckham, Blaine, Bryan, Caddo, Canadian, Carter, Choctaw, Cimarron, Coal, Comanche, Cotton, Craig, Creek, Custer, Dewey, Ellis, Garfield, Garvin, Grady, Grant, Greer, Harmon, Harper, Hughes, Jackson, Jefferson, Johnston, Kay, Kingfisher, Kiowa, Latimer, LeFlore, Logan, Love, Major, Marshall, McClain, McCurtain, Noble, Nowata, Osage, Pawnee, Payne, Pittsburg, Pushmataha, Roger Mills, Stephens, Texas, Tillman, Washington, Washita, Woods, and Woodward.   

Farm operators in the 18 Oklahoma counties listed below also qualify for natural disaster assistance because their counties are contiguous to the designated counties.

Those counties are: Adair, Cleveland, Delaware, Haskell, Lincoln, Mayes, McIntosh, Murray, Okfuskee, Oklahoma, Okmulgee, Ottawa, Pontotoc, Pottawatomie, Rogers, Seminole, Sequoyah, and Tulsa.

All counties listed above were designated natural disaster areas on July 12, making all qualified farm operators in the designated areas eligible for low interest emergency loans from 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.

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