BANGOR – Dave Lavway, executive director of USDA’s Farm Service Agency in Maine, has announced that USDA will begin allocations for $99,000 in Emergency Conservation Program (ECP) funding to three Maine counties to help farmers and ranchers rehabilitate land damaged by last year’s ice storms and other natural disasters. Aroostook County will receive $85,000, Lincoln County, $5,000; and Waldo County, $9,000. “This funding will provide much-needed assistance to farmers and ranchers who have been hit hard by recent calamities,” said Lavway. “It will allow farmers and ranchers to repair environmental damage caused by the disaster conditions they have encountered, such as flooding and drought conditions.”
ECP gives producers additional resources to remove debris from farmland, restore fences and conservation structures, provide water for livestock in drought situations, and grade and shape farmland damaged by a natural disaster. USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) state and county committees administer ECP. Locally-elected county committees are authorized to implement ECP for all disasters except drought, which is authorized at the national office of FSA. Eligible producers will receive cost-share assistance of up to 75 percent of the cost of the approved practice, as determined by FSA county committees.
Producers should check with their local FSA offices regarding ECP sign-up periods, which are set by FSA county committees. For a producer’s land to be eligible, the disaster must create new conservation problems that, if untreated, would impair or endanger the land and affect its productive capacity. Conservation problems existing prior to the applicable disaster are ineligible for ECP assistance.
USDA offers additional programs to help farmers and ranchers recover from damages caused by natural disasters. These programs include the Emergency Loan Program, Federal Crop Insurance and the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program.
More information on ECP and other disaster assistance programs is available at local FSA service centers and online at: http://www.fsa.usda.gov.