- Author: John M Harper
Ukiah, CA, September 16, 2020 — Recent wildfires have impacted farmers and ranchers in Mendocino and Lake Counties. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), through the Farm Service Agency (FSA), has disaster assistance programs available to help agricultural producers recover after natural disasters, including wildfires.
“FSA offers a variety of disaster assistance programs to support farmers and ranchers through times of adversity,” said Katie Delbar, County Executive Director for FSA in Mendocino and Lake County. “Many disaster programs have a 30-day window to report losses, so once producers are able to evaluate their losses, it is important to contact the local FSA office to report all damages and losses and learn more about how we can assist.”
FSA offers many programs to help producers recover from losses, including the Livestock Indemnity Program (LIP), the Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honeybees, and Farm-Raised Fish Program (ELAP), Emergency Forest Restoration Program and the Tree Assistance Program. Producers located in counties receiving a primary or contiguous disaster designation are eligible for low-interest emergency loans to help them recover from production and physical losses.
To participate in LIP, producers must submit a notice of loss to their local FSA office within 30 calendar days of when the loss of livestock is apparent. In addition, livestock producers should bring supporting evidence, including documentation of the number and kind of livestock that died, photographs or video records to document the loss, purchase records, veterinarian records, production records, and other similar documents. Owners who sold injured livestock for a reduced price because the livestock was injured due to an adverse weather event, must provide verifiable evidence of the reduced sale of the livestock.
To participate in ELAP, producers must submit a notice of loss to their local FSA office within 30 calendar days of when the loss is apparent. Producers should also maintain records and receipts documenting that livestock were removed from the grazing pasture due to adverse weather, costs of transporting livestock feed to eligible livestock, receipts for equipment rental fees for hay lifts, and feed purchase receipts.
The FSA Emergency Conservation Program provides funding and technical assistance for farmers and ranchers to rehabilitate farmland damaged by natural disasters.
Compensation also is available to producers who purchased coverage through FSA's Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program, which protects non-insurable crops against natural disasters that result in lower yields, crop losses or prevented planting. Eligible producers must have purchased NAP coverage for 2020 crops and file a notice of loss and application for payment on qualifying crops.
Please contact the local FSA office at 707-468-9223 (ext. 2) for more information about our disaster assistance programs or visit farmers.gov/recover.
- Author: John M Harper
The current cost is $9/acre for 10 pounds/acre seeding rate and $10/acre for 20 pounds/acre seeding rate. If more landowners participate with more acres the price may go down. Gibson plans on being here on the Sunday after Thanksgiving which is November 26, 2017. Diane, Devon (Farm Bureau), Katie Delbar (FSA) and I are working together to get the word out not just the ranchers who have been affected by the fire, but also any rancher who would like to take advantage of the plane being in the area to get some seeding done. Diane was told that Gibson said that he would help to source seed. Feel free to share this information with anyone you think might want to be involved.
Usually the goal for a cattle, sheep or goat livestock operation is to maximize high quality forage production. Typically on the North Coast, a 50:50 mix of annual grasses and legumes are recommended and seeded at 20 to 25 lbs per acre. The grasses are usually annual ryegrass, brome and fescue. The annual legume is subterranean clover. In areas of less steep topography and good soils, Berber orchardgrass, a perennial, may be substituted for part of the grass mixture. Perennials extend the green season providing better forage and enhance carbon storage. Many, however, don't compete well with annuals and have difficulty surviving our hot dry summers. A recent paper in California Agriculture was just published on some other promising forage perennials. The study was done in the Sierra foothills and a few of those mentioned have been tested here. The link to the current issue is http://ucanr.edu/repository/fileAccessPublic.cfm?calag=fullissues/CAv071n04.pdf&url_attachment=N. The range seeding paper starts on page 239.
For those interested in using California native grasses and forbs check out the following publication at http://ucanr.edu/sites/BayAreaRangeland/files/267610.pdf. Be aware that seed sources for natives will often cost more than 10 times the typical forage species. Also some are toxic to livestock or are not great forage species.
- Author: John M Harper
Post fire inventories include a lot for ranchers, e.g. stock, forage, fence, buildings and equipment losses immediately come to mind. Equally important is an inventory of potential sediment sources from hill slopes, fire cut roads and riparian areas that will need mitigation to prevent soil loss and sediment movement into streams.
Rice straw as mulch, in bales for check dams and in the ubiquitous waddles all come into play for the recovery process. Sometimes the mulch is also used in reseeding sites too. The following sources of rice straw were put together by Rachel Elkins, pomology advisor and were forwarded to me by Greg Giusti, forestry and wildlands advisor - emeritus.
Paul Buttner of the California Rice Commission (https://twitter.com/PaulTheRiceGuy). His website is: http://www.ricestrawmarket.org/index.html. It is a buyer-seller website. His phone number is (916) 206-5340. His twitter page links to http://calrice.org with more contact information.
Ken Collins, a rice grower in Gridley (Butte County) is a large rice straw dealer. His phone number is (530) 682-6020.
EarthSavers makes straw wattles. They are in Woodland: http://www.earth-savers.com/.
Once you have an inventory of potential sediment sources identified, contact the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) for technical help with mitigation and design of erosion control structures. I've included Carol Mandel's contact information below. Many of these mitigation techniques will have cost share programs to help.
Carol Mandel
USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
1252 Airport Park Blvd. Suite B-1
Ukiah CA 95482
Bus: (707) 468-9223
Email: carol.mandel@ca.usda.gov
- 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
