U.S. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman says
most farmers won’t get the $2 billion earmarked for special
crop disaster aid until after
the spring planting season.
Congress approved the payments for the crop loss disaster
assistance program last year
as part of a $6 billion aid package.
Purpose of
aid
“It was designed to help U.S. farmers hard hit by
several years of crop losses to
disease, weather and slumping commodity prices,” said Bill Thomas, an economist with
the University of Georgia College
of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.Glickman said so many farmers have applied that they’ve
overwhelmed the U.S. Department of
Agriculture. The paperwork needed to
figure each farmer’s eligibility and prorate the $2
billion among qualifying applicants
has also slowed the payments.
Exactly what this means for Georgia farmers will
vary.
Aid payments may come too
late
|
J. Cannon, UGA |
| DRY FIELDS don’t offer much hope for many farmers in south Georgia. Some are planting in spite of continuing dry weather, and know they aren’t likely to make money on the crop. Aid payments from USDA are slow coming and may be too late for many farmers already hit hard by years of low prices and uncooperative weather. |
“Losses have to be 35 percent of production history. So
every farmer will be
different,” Thomas said. “Prices are still low for many
crops. Some farmers are
planting knowing they won’t make money on this crop.”Anything they can get will help them hold on for one
more year and hope for better
times.
“An Extension
Service agent from south
Georgia tells me it’s beginning to be really dry,” Thomas
said. “Of course, that
could mean poor yields on top of poor prices this
year.”
Better news for
dairies
While the outlook is bleak for crop farmers, dairies
might see relief sooner. And they
deeply need it.The fall in the basic formula price for milk announced
March 5 was the sharpest monthly
decline of milk prices ever. It more than doubled the
previous record monthly decline.Thomas said the dramatic drop will give Georgia dairy
farmers the lowest price for
their milk since 1991.“The USDA is releasing $200 million to help dairy
farmers facing greatly reduced
milk prices,” he said. “Dairy farmers can collect payments
of up to $5,000 each
under the new Dairy Income Loss Assistance program.”
Targetted to family-sized
farms
Under the plan, the USDA will make payments based on a
dairy farm’s first 2.6 million
pounds of milk in 1998 or 1997, whichever is the
highest.“Targeted to family-sized farms, the plan is based
roughly on the annual
production of 150 cows,” Thomas said. “The average herd in
Georgia is 211 cows.
So in Georgia, the average dairy farmer will be capped at
$5,000.”All dairies that produced milk during the last quarter
of 1998 are eligible. The final
payment rate per hundredweight will be calculated after
the sign-up ends.“The USDA now figures it will be between 18 and 20
cents per hundredweight,”
Thomas said. Farmers may apply at their USDA Farm Service
Agency office from April 12
until May 21.
