Chattooga County farmers, cattle producers and landowners have two important USDA deadlines approaching, including a September 30 deadline for disaster assistance and an October 9 deadline for several conservation programs.

The first deadline is Wednesday, September 30, for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Disaster Relief Program, or SDRP.

The program provides assistance to agricultural producers who suffered eligible revenue, production or quality losses involving crops, trees, bushes or vines because of qualifying natural disasters during 2023 or 2024.

USDA says the deadline for both Stage 1 and Stage 2 applications has been extended to September 30.

Who In Chattooga County Could Qualify?

For local producers, the program could potentially apply to those who experienced qualifying losses involving hay and forage crops, corn and other row crops, fruits, vegetables or other eligible crops during 2023 or 2024.

Cattle ownership by itself does not qualify a producer for this particular disaster program, because SDRP covers losses involving eligible crops, trees, bushes and vines. However, a cattle producer who also grows hay, forage or other eligible crops could potentially qualify based on losses to those crops.

Qualifying disasters can include drought, excessive heat, excessive moisture, flooding, tornadoes, freezes, winter storms and other eligible weather events, although specific eligibility requirements apply. For drought losses, USDA uses U.S. Drought Monitor thresholds to determine whether a county and loss qualify.

Stage 1 primarily covers producers whose losses were already associated with Federal Crop Insurance or USDA’s Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program, commonly known as NAP.

Stage 2 covers certain losses that weren’t compensated under Stage 1, including some uninsured losses, insured losses that weren’t large enough to trigger an insurance or NAP payment, and qualifying losses involving reduced crop quality.

USDA says producers applying under Stage 2 may be required to provide documentation supporting production or quality losses. Stage 2 applications also contain information prefilled by FSA, so producers should work directly with their county FSA office rather than attempting to complete the process on their own.

Conservation Money Available For Farms, Pastures And Forestland

A second USDA deadline arrives Friday, October 9.

The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, or NRCS, has established October 9 as Georgia’s first-round funding deadline for several major conservation programs.

They include the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, or EQIP; Conservation Stewardship Program, or CSP; Regional Conservation Partnership Program, or RCPP; and Agricultural Conservation Easement Program, or ACEP.

Unlike the disaster program, these programs can potentially benefit a much broader range of Chattooga County agricultural operations.

Cattle and livestock producers can work with NRCS to determine whether conservation