Ag secretary offers help for lost livestock

Ag secretary offers help for lost livestock Roswell Daily Record By AJ Dickman A group of about 40 local ranchers and dairy farmers gathered at the Chaves County Cooperative Extension Office on Wednesday to meet with the New Mexico secretary of agriculture and officials from the state’s Farm Service Agency to learn about federal programs that could help ease the burdens brought on by Winter Storm Goliath. Sec. Jeff Witte’s overall message for livestock owners was to be as detailed and meticulous as possible when documenting their losses. “The number one thing I want to say here is document, document, document your losses,” Witte said. “We are here to serve you guys. Let us know what we can do.” Witte said this particular weather event was unprecedented for this part of the state. “This is a catastrophic event, something you just cannot plan for,” he said. “Snow is one thing, wind is one thing, but when you get this kind of snow and wind together, it’s not a good mix, especially in an area of New Mexico where they just really aren’t prepared for it.” The Agricultural Act of 2014, also known as the 2014 Farm Bill, authorized the Livestock Indemnity Program to provide benefits to livestock producers for livestock deaths in excess of normal mortality caused by adverse weather. LIP payments are equal to 75 percent of the market value of the applicable livestock on the day before the date of death of the livestock as determined by the U.S. secretary of agriculture. Molly Manzanares, executive director of the New Mexico office of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s FSA, said livestock owners should contact their county FSA office as soon as they discover a loss to take advantage of federal programs that can provide some financial relief. “Our county offices are staffed and open,” she said. “If bad weather forces the closure of your county office, you may phone any neighboring county office to file your notice of loss.” FSA program specialist Emaleta Mooney described the filing process in more detail. “You need to call your county office the minute that you find you have a loss,” Mooney said. “Then, you get your documentation together and go in (to the county FSA office) and sign the application for payment. Once you sign the application and it’s approved by the county committee, your payment should be generated. In a perfect world, with a fully-staffed county office and county committees meeting on time, you should get paid within 30 days.” The FSA requires documentation of the number and kind of livestock that have died, supplemented, if possible, by items such as, but not limited to, dated photographs or video recordings, purchase records, veterinarian records, production records, bank or other loan documents, written contracts, records assembled for tax purposes, private insurance documents or other similar reliable documents. “As (Sec. Witte) said, document, document, document,” Mooney said. “You can’t have enough documentation.” Manzanares said livestock owners should have a veterinarian verify their losses initially. “I’ve been in contact with APHIS (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service) and they have veterinarians available for producers to work with to verify losses,” Manzanares said. Mooney said livestock owners have until Feb. 1 to sign the application for payment for losses incurred during the 2015 crop year. “If it’s after Feb. 1 that you realize your loss is apparent, you’re going to be in the 2016 crop year and the rates will be a little different,” Mooney said. “They’ll actually be a little bit higher.” Witte said it’s important for livestock owners to keep the deadlines for each crop year in mind. “One thing I want to point out is that you are potentially dealing with two program years here,” the secretary said. “You could have the opportunity for two funding cycles.” The deadline for signing the application for payment for the 2016 crop year is Jan. 30, 2017. Mooney said beginning and ending inventory records are important for livestock that are never found. “If you never see them and you know they are lost because of the storm, you should get reimbursed for them,” she said. Manzanares said the FSA is working to get a secretarial designation from the USDA which would enable livestock owners to apply for emergency loans of up to $500,000 at low-interest rates. Witte said the Farm Bill programs are not perfect, but they will help while his office explores other possible solutions. “These are good programs. They have their limitations and hopefully we can find some way to look for some other kinds of programs that may become available,” he said. “In the past, you had to go through Congress and get some different types of designations, but these are automatic programs so the producers can get paid a little quicker and get on their feet a little faster.” Charlie DeGroot of Three Amigos Dairy in Dexter said he has not applied for federal assistance in the past, but hopes the process is as quick and efficient as Witte and others suggested. “They made it sound like everything might go smoothly, but we’ll see how it goes,” he said. DeGroot said Winter Storm Goliath was the biggest natural disaster for the dairy industry in this area, but the agricultural community came together to help each other. “It’s a good bunch of people and we try to be the best neighbors we can be for the community,” he said. “We did have to mostly dig ourselves out, especially people who are farther from the highways. We needed to open the roads as soon as possible to get feed in and get milk out. The dairymen and also neighboring farmers who had equipment suited for clearing roads helped out. It’s a great community and we help each other out in these situations.” The USDA Chaves County FSA office is at 300 Pennsylvania Ave. and can be reached at 575-622-8745.