Pasture Recovery Gets $40 Million

July 13, 2000

USDA’s Farm Service Agency Administrator Keith Kelly says about $40 million will be issued to producers under the Pasture Recovery Program (PRP). On March 13, Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman announced the program, designed to help farmers whose pastures were severely damaged by drought in 1999 re-establish forage crops. Eligible land included pasture which was normally grazed by livestock, but was so damaged by drought that seeding was required to reestablish the forage crop.

County Farm Service Agency offices conducted a signup from March 20 to June 23. Since producer demand exceeded the amount of funds available by approximately $14 million, a national pro-rated factor was applied to all requests. Consequently, producers will receive about 73.5% of the amount they qualified for under PRP. Payments will made by county FSA offices in mid-July provided the reseeding has been established successfully.