USDA Texas Farm Service Agency (FSA) Executive Director Judith A. Canales announced that Matagorda County was declared a disaster on July 2, 2014, due to drought. Under this designation, which used the streamlined Secretarial Disaster Designation process, producers in any of the primary or contiguous disaster counties are eligible to apply for low interest emergency loans. The following four counties were designated as contiguous disaster counties: Brazoria, Calhoun, Jackson and Wharton.

The streamlined disaster designation process issues a drought disaster declaration when a county has experienced a drought intensity value of at least a D2 (severe drought) level for eight consecutive weeks based on the U.S. Drought Monitor during the crop year.

Emergency loans help producers recover from production and physical losses due to drought, flooding and other natural disasters or quarantine. As a general rule, a farmer must have suffered at least a 30 percent loss of production to be eligible for an FSA emergency loan.

Under this designation, emergency loan applications will be accepted through March 2, 2015. FSA will consider each loan application on its own merits, taking into account the extent of losses, security available and repayment ability. Producers can borrow up to 100 percent of actual production or physical losses, to a maximum amount of $500,000. The current emergency loan interest rate is 3.125 percent.

For more information about emergency loans, please contact your local FSA office or visit www.fsa.usda.gov.