Texas counties approved for livestock assistance program

AUSTIN – Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs reminds livestock producers that 240 Texas counties have been approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency for the Livestock Assistance Program (LAP).

Area counties that are approved include Donley, Hall, Briscoe, Collingsworth, Armstrong, and Gray.

LAP, administrated by FSA, provides direct payments to eligible livestock producers in approved counties who suffered grazing losses due to natural disasters during 2000. Nationwide, $430 million have been allocated for livestock producers for weather-related losses as part of the farm assistance package passed last October.

For drought-related losses, LAP benefits are available in approved counties where precipitation was 40 percent or more below normal for at least four months and where there was at least a 40 percent loss of available grazing during a 90-day period due to drought during the 2000-crop year.

Eligible producers must have suffered a 40 percent or greater loss of grazing for three or more consecutive months during 2000 due to a natural disaster.

Eligible livestock include beef and dairy cattle, buffalo or beefalo when maintained on the same basis as beef cattle, sheep, goats, swine and equine animals used commercially for human food or kept for the production of food or fiber on the owner’s farm or ranch.

For more information on LAP, visit the USDA-Farm Service Agency website at www.fsa.usda.gov/pas/publications/facts/html/lap01.htm or contact the local USDA Service Center.