- Author: John M Harper
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) offers the Livestock Indemnity Program (LIP) to reimburse producers up to 75% of the market value of animals lost due to adverse weather conditions. Adverse weather conditions under LIP include wildfires. All classes of cattle are eligible for reimbursement including cows, bulls and calves. For 2017, a claim for a bull is paid out at $1,350.34, a cow at $1,038.73 and non-adult cattle (calves) from $471.22 per head to $1,001.12 per head depending on weight.
Sheep, goats and other stock including poultry are also eligible. There reimbursement rates for them are shown in tables in the document link included at the end of this post.
In order to be eligible to receive payment under LIP, a producer must notify their local county Farm Service Administration (FSA) of their intent to seek a claim within 30 days of the loss (see Katie Delbar's contact information below).
Katie Delbar
1252 Airport Park Blvd., Ste B-1
Ukiah, CA 95482
Bus: 707) 468-9225 ext. 2
Email: Katie.Delbar@ca.usda.gov
A final claim must be submitted within 90 days of informing the county FSA office of the loss and the final claim must also be made within the same calendar year as the loss. Documentation will be requested by the county FSA office to verify the claim including any photographs that can be made available documenting the loss or the impact of the fire, records to prove ownership, etc.
A fact sheet about the Livestock Indemnity Program can be found here.
- Author: John M Harper
See the attached flier for date, time and location of a joint agency sponsored workshop for those impacted by the recent fires.
November 15 Fire Meeting
- Author: John M Harper
The attached pdf, from Katie Delbar, provides initial info on assistance for ag producers with property in the recent Mendocino & Lake fires.
I've just begun to work on a smartphone app that I hope will make it easy to assess acreage damaged by the fires, economic value of the forage losses and reseeding requirements and cost assessments. I'll keep you posted on that progress.
Below are quite a few links for UC information on fire recovery that Ken Tate put together:
http://ucanr.edu/sites/postfire/
http://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=18117
http://ucanr.edu/sites/forestry/Wildfire/
http://ucanr.edu/News/Wildfire/
http://www.cafiresci.org/announcements-source/category/postfirerecoveryucanr
http://anrcatalog.ucanr.edu/pdf/8446.pdf
http://ucanr.edu/sites/forageloss/files/74150.xls
http://ucanr.edu/sites/forageloss/files/74149.xls
http://cesutter.ucanr.edu/Fire_Information/
http://ucanr.edu/?blogtag=wildfire&blogasset=60503
http://cecentralsierra.ucanr.edu/files/220420.pdf
http://anrcatalog.ucanr.edu/pdf/8386.pdf
http://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=19424
Redwood Complex Fire
- Author: John M Harper
Announcement reprinted from California Wool Growers' Association newsletter. I was part of the team and it reflects input from Mendocino and Lake County ranchers as well as the rest of the state.
California has experienced five large-scale, multiyear droughts since 1960; however, the current event is considered the state's most severe drought in at least 500 years. Each year of the current drought has presented different challenges; for example, much of California received no measurable precipitation December 2013 through late January 2014. In the following year, the Sierra Nevada snowpack was just 5% of normal. As California ranching is largely dependent on rain-fed systems, as opposed to groundwater or stored water, it is very vulnerable to drought. In fact, rangeland livestock ranchers were among the first affected by the abnormally warm, dry winters at the beginning of the current multiyear drought.
In this article, we highlight lessons learned so far from past droughts, as well as California's unprecedented and ongoing multiyear drought. We draw on ranchers' perspectives and experiences, including research results from a statewide mail survey of 507 ranchers and semistructured interviews of 102 ranchers, as well as our own experiences. The mail survey (the California Rangeland Decision-Making Survey) included questions on operator and operation demographics, goals and practices, information resources, and rancher perspectives. Semistructured interviews are part of a larger ongoing project (the California Ranch Stewardship Project) examining rangeland management for multiple ecosystem services.
The publication is available at the following link - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019005281630027X
- Author: John M Harper
In managed rangelands and agricultural areas, feral or wild pigs are a significant pest species. However, estimates of total damaged area occurring on these lands are ill-defined and subject to a high degree of variability. Wild pigs can be important vectors of disease, can cause forage and crop loss and set up sites for erosion effecting water quality and allow
UCCE Livestock and Range Advisors and Wildlife Specialists need your help by filling out a short statewide survey on wild pig damage found at: http://ucanr.edu/survey/survey.cfm?surveynumber=16522. It should only take about 15 minutes to complete. Individual identities and survey responses will be kept confidential. Participation in the survey is entirely voluntary.
In conjunction with the survey we have developed a smart phone or tablet app that will help landowners and managers identify and record feral pig damage so that we can estimate the land area and economic impacts of feral pig damage over a longer time period. If you are interested in participating in data collection using our mobile application, please fill out the survey and indicate your interest at the end.
If you have questions about the survey or would like a paper copy, please contact either UCCE Livestock & Natural Resources Advisor, John Harper, at 707-463-4495 or jmharper@ucanr.edu or UCCE Wildlife Specialist, Roger Baldwin, at (530) 752-4551 or rabaldwin@ucdavis.edu.