Ohio counties eligible for physical loss loans

COLUMBUS — USDA Farm Service Agency emergency physical loss loans will be available in eight Ohio counties.

The following counties were designated as primary counties, due to excessive rains, flooding, flash flooding, hail, frost, lightning, high winds and tornadoes that occurred Feb. 1 through July 31.

Counties

Those counties include: Adams, Allen, Brown, Butler, Fulton, Greene, Hamilton and Hancock.

Counties eligible because they are contiguous to those listed above are: Auglaize, Clark, Clermont, Clinton, Fayette, Hardin, Henry, Highland, Lucas, Madison, Montgomery, Pike, Preble, Putnam, Scioto, Seneca, Van Wert, Warren, Williams, Wood and Wyandot.

All counties listed above were designated on Oct. 2 making Farm Service Agency emergency physical loss loans available to eligible applicants with qualifying severe physical losses in the primary and contiguous counties, provided eligibility requirements are met. This approval is limited to applicants who suffered severe physical losses only.

Qualify

To qualify, farmers must be unable to obtain credit from commercial sources. Farmers in eligible counties have eight months from the date of the declaration to apply for loans to help cover part or all of their actual losses.

FSA will consider each loan application on its own merits, taking into account the extent of losses, security available and repayment ability.

FSA has a variety of programs, in addition to the emergency loan program, to help eligible farmers recover from adversity. USDA has also made other programs available to assist farmers, including the emergency conservation program, federal crop insurance and the noninsured crop disaster assistance program.

Interested farmers should contact their local FSA county office for further information on eligibility requirements and application procedures for these and other programs.