Much of the Commonwealth is experiencing severe to extreme drought conditions due to the extended lack of rain and dropping water tables. The drought continues to disrupt planting schedules, reduce crop yields, devastating pastures and forcing emergency hay feeding. Governor Abigail Spanberger encourages all Virginians to practice voluntary water conservation and has detailed potential actions for some of the most impacted areas of the state. This includes a possible drought emergency for the Roanoke Drought Evaluation Region if conditions do not immediately improve.
To date, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has issued drought disaster designations for 77 Virginia localities. A USDA disaster designation allows emergency loans to be available to producers suffering losses in the primary designated locality as well as the localities that are contiguous to a primary locality. Provided eligibility requirements are met, the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) will assess each emergency loan application individually to consider specific circumstances and needs. Farmers in eligible localities have eight months from the date of disaster declaration to apply for emergency loans. For more information and to verify exact filing deadlines, farmers should contact their local USDA FSA office.
To help farmers determine if their locality has been issued a disaster designation and to provide other critical resource information, the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS) has created a Disaster Recovery Resources for Farmers webpage. The new webpage also contains information on the recent USDA disaster designations for localities impacted by the late spring severe frost and freeze events.
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor (http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu), designated localities suffered from a drought intensity value during the growing season of 1) D2 Drought-Severe for eight or more consecutive weeks or 2) D3 Drought-Extreme or D4 Drought-Exceptional.
Farmers should contact their local USDA FSA office for more information and to verify their exact filing date based on their locality’s date of disaster designation. Application rules can be complex when navigating multiple designations. For more information on available assistance programs and the application process, please visit the Virginia FSA State Office website at www.fsa.usda.gov/state-offices/Virginia.
FSA also has a variety of other disaster recovery programming available for impacted producers. Please visit www.fsa.usda.gov/resources/programs?assistance_type%5B0%5D=13 or contact your local FSA office for more information.
