Livestock Forage Disaster Program

Livestock Forage Disaster Program

Livestock Forage Disaster Program. I'm Greg Martin with Washington Ag Today.

The weather continues to take its toll on the ag industry. Steve King with the Farm Service Agency says they have been working with producers on the Livestock Forage Disaster Program.

KING: The program is designed to trigger payments for feed loss whenever there is an exceptional drought. As of earlier this week we have several counties in Washington State that met the criteria based o the U.S. drought monitor.

King talks about what kind of payments you might see from the program.

KING: At this level of drought the payment would be equal to 60% of one months worth of feed. For a beef cow at that rate would be $40.79 and other animals, sheep, goats, hogs whatever would have different payment rates but that just gives you an example.

King says if you have any questions at all you should contact your local FSA office.

KING: We look at a couple different factors when someone applies. First, of course, is the number animals because the payment rate is based on that. We would also look at the number of acres of pasture that they have and every county has a set carrying capacity so if someone in Okanagan County has a 100 cows on 50 acres, that's overstocked basically so you would be limited based on your carrying capacity for your county.

And that's Washington Ag Today. I'm Greg Martin, thanks for listening on the Ag Information Network of the West.

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