The secretarial natural disaster designation allows the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA) to extend much-needed emergency credit to producers recovering from natural disasters through emergency loans.
The emergency loans can be used to meet various recovery needs, including the replacement of essential items such as equipment or livestock, reorganization of a farming operation or the refinance of certain debts. FSA will review the loans based on the extent of losses, security available and repayment ability.
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, these counties suffered from a drought intensity value during the growing season of 1) D2 Drought-Severe for eight or more consecutive weeks or 2) D3 Drought-Extreme or D4 Drought-Exceptional.
Farmers and ranchers who are in the disaster areas have until Dec. 8 to apply for these emergency loans.
Primary counties identified as disaster areas include:
| Anderson Andrews Angelina Archer Armstrong Atascosa Bailey Bandera Baylor Bee Bell Bexar Blanco Borden Bosque Bowie Brewster Briscoe Brooks Brown Burnet Callahan Camp Carson Cass Castro Cherokee ChildressClay Cochran Coke Coleman Collin Collingsworth Comal Comanche Concho Cooke Coryell Cottle Crane Crockett Crosby Culberson Dallam Dallas Dawson Deaf Smith Delta Denton Dickens Dimmit Donley Duval Eastland Ector Edwards Ellis Erath |
Fannin Fisher Floyd Foard Franklin Frio Gaines Garza Gillespie Glasscock Gray Grayson Gregg Hale Hall Hamilton Hansford Hardeman Harrison Hartley Haskell Hemphill Henderson Hill Hockley Hood Hopkins Houston Howard Hudspeth Hunt Hutchinson Irion Jeff Davis Jefferson Jim Hogg Jim Wells Johnson Jones Karnes Kaufman Kendall Kent Kerr Kimble Kings Kinney Knox Lamar Lamb Lampasas La Salle Lipscombe Live Oak Llano Loving Lubbock Lynn |
McCulloch McLennan McMullen Marion Martin Mason Maverick Medina Midland Mills Mitchell Montague Moore Morris Motley Nacogdoches Nolan Ochiltree Oldham Orange Palo Pinto Panola Parker Parmer Pecos Potter Presidio Rains Randall Reagan Real Red River Reeves Roberts Rockwall Runnels Rusk San Augustine San Saba Schleicher Scurry Shackelford Shelby Sherman Smith Somervell Starr Stephens Sterling Stonewall Sutton Swisher Tarrant Taylor Terrell Terry |
Contiguous counties also eligible include:
| Chambers DeWitt El Paso Falls Freestone Goliad Gonzales Guadalupe Hardin Hays Hidalgo Jack Jasper Lynn McCulloch Kenedy Kleberg Leon Liberty Limestone Madison Menard |
Milam Newton Nueces McCulloch Kenedy Kleberg Leon Liberty Limestone Madison Menard Milam Newton Nueces Refugio Sabine San Patricio Throckmorton Titus Tom Green Travis Trinity |
Tyler Upshur Upton Uvalde Val Verde Van Zandt Walker Ward Webb Wheeler Wichita Wilbarger Williamson Wilson Winkler Wise Wood Yoakum Young Zapata Zavala |
More Resources
On farmers.gov, the Disaster Assistance Discovery Tool, Disaster Assistance-at-a-Glance fact sheet and Farm Loan Discovery Tool can help you determine program or loan options. To file a Notice of Loss or to ask questions about available programs, contact your local USDA Service Center.
Would like to know if Wilson County has been declared a disaster county ?
Hi, Charles! Wilson is included in the list of contiguous counties.
Why would San Saba not be on list ,we haven’t had but 1 inch of rain this year, everyone is out of grass, wheat has failed, hay is non existent and feed and fertilizer cannot be afforded for many of our farmers and ranchers.