Declaring A Disaster

Declaring A Disaster. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report A number of the states crops have been hit by cool wet weather this spring and last Friday Washington State Director of Agriculture Dan Newhouse spent some time traveling around the state to check out in person the rain damaged crops. Hay, asparagus and of course the cherry crop have all been hit hard due to recent heavy rain and cool temperatures. Newhouse has asked the Governor for some disaster assistance. NEWHOUSE: Any county that is designated as a disaster county certainly if the issue or problem was caused by the weather conditions that caused that designation, they would be included and so cherries would be part of that. The disaster designation would include about 25 to 30 counties. Federal disaster designation would allow farmers to get low-interest loans and apply for other programs to recoup their losses regardless of what crop was damaged. NEWHOUSE: In our disaster declarations we don't have to list every crop that we know of that's experiencing damage but if a grower can document that the event that we're using to declare the disaster caused the damage then he should be able to make the case eligible. To start the process you will need to contact your local FSA office but Newhouse says it will take some time. NEWHOUSE: We're looking at a 90 day window where the Governor has to request from the Secretary of Agriculture disaster designation and so with this single letter we're asking for several different events that have occurred over this past spring. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.