USDA Designates Mid-Atlantic Region Disaster Area

August 3, 1999

Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman says West Virginia is a disaster area due to excessive heat and drought. Low interest loans will be available to farmers there and in 33 contiguous counties in five other states.

The designation includes counties in Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia to cover losses from the drought. It was expected that unless adequate rain replenished subsoil and restored crops heading into late summer, more counties in several states will be declared disaster areas.

"Damage is being assessed and additional requests for disaster designations are expected soon," Glickman said in making the announcement. The hardest hit areas include the eastern portion of the United States from New England to western North Carolina, the other half of Florida and parts of the Pacific Northwest.

In addition to loans, farmers in designated drought disaster areas will have access to the Emergency Conservation Program that provides emergency cost-share funding for water conservation; federal crop insurance, and the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program that provides compensation for crops for which crop insurance is not available.

Farmers will have eight months from the date of the loss to apply for loans to help cover part of actual losses. To be eligible, producers must have suffered at least a 30% loss of normal production in a single enterprise, be able to repay the loan and any other loans, be unable to obtain credit elsewhere and have adequate security or credit history.