|
October 9, 2023 – Columbus/Indigenous Peoples’ Day. USDA Service Centers will be closed.
October 31, 2023 - Deadline for borrowers who experienced discrimination in USDA Farm Loans to submit an application for assistance under IRA Section 22007.
November 2, 2023 – OCCSP application deadline.
November 11, 2023 – Veterans Day. USDA Service Centers will be closed.
November 20, 2023 – Deadline to sign up for 2024 NAP coverage for asparagus, berries, grapes, hops, tree fruits, nuts, and other perennial crops (not including biennial/perennial forages and mixed forages for hay, seed, or grazing).
November 23, 2023 – Thanksgiving Day. USDA Service Centers will be closed.
December 4, 2023 – Last day to return county committee ballots to the USDA Service Center.
December 15, 2023 – 2023 acreage reporting deadline for fall seeded crops. This includes fall planted alfalfa, canola, lentils, mint, onions, peas, and small grains.
December 15, 2023 – 2023 deadline to report actual harvested production of 2023 NAP covered fall-seeded crops including, fall canola, mint, peas, lentils, and fall-seeded small grains.
December 25, 2023 – Christmas Day. USDA Service Centers will be closed.
December 31, 2023 – Deadline to sign up for 2024 NAP coverage for honey.
December 31, 2023 - Deadline for distressed Farm Loan borrowers to request assistance under IRA Section 22006
Whitman County - Program Technician
The Farm Service Agency office located in Colfax, WA is accepting applications for two Full-Time Permanent Program Technician positions. Duties include carrying out office activities related to farm programs. The full vacancy announcement which includes qualifications, eligibility requirements will be posted on USA Jobs at www.usajobs.gov. The salary ranges from $34,584 to $60,703 per year. Candidates may qualify for a 25% recruitment incentive for these positions.
Lincoln County - Program Technician – Up to 3 positions
The Farm Service Agency office located in Davenport, WA is accepting applications for three Full-Time Permanent Program Technician positions. Duties include carrying out office activities related to farm programs. The full vacancy announcement which includes qualifications, eligibility requirements will be posted on USA Jobs at www.usajobs.gov. The salary ranges from $34,584 to $60,703 per year.
Douglas County - Program Technician
The Farm Service Agency office located in Waterville, WA is accepting applications for a Full-Time Permanent Program Technician position. Duties include carrying out office activities related to farm programs. The full vacancy announcement which includes qualifications, eligibility requirements will be posted on USA Jobs at www.usajobs.gov. The salary ranges from $34,584 to $60,703 per year.
Spokane County and Franklin County – Farm Loan Officer Trainee
The Farm Service Agency office located in Spokane Valley, WA and Pasco, WA will be accepting applications for a Farm Loan Officer Trainee position (1 each in Spokane Valley and in Pasco). This is a paid position that offers 2-year classroom and on-the-job training to develop competencies required to be a successful Farm Loan Officer (FLO). The full vacancy announcement which includes qualifications, eligibility requirements, and closing date will be posted on USA Jobs at www.usajobs.gov.
Washington State Farm Service Agency (FSA) is hiring part-time, Temporary Program Technician (PT), positions in Okanogan County. This is a great opportunity for students or those that can only commit to a part-time schedule but full-time schedules are available as well.
Duties include general office activities supporting FSA programs administered at the field level. Successful applicants must be reliable, have a professional attitude, enjoy working with the public. The hourly rate depends on education and experience.
If you are interested or know of someone who might be interested, please share this information with them. To apply please submit a copy of your resume to tiffany.south@usda.gov. You may also direct questions by calling 509-422-2750 extension 112.
USDA service centers have been experiencing delays making and receiving calls. When you call your local office, you may experience up to a few minutes of silence before the call connects. Our Information Technology support team is aware of the problem and is working on a fix, but there is currently no timeline for when the problem will be resolved. In the meantime, you can follow these tips for contacting your county office:
- Stay on the line. It may take a few second or a few minutes to connect.
- Call the direct line of the employee you are trying to reach.
- Use email instead.
- Call via Microsoft Teams, if you are able.
For contact information, including an email address for the county office, use the USDA Service Center locator tool.
USDA announced Milk Loss Program (MLP) assistance for eligible dairy operations for milk that was dumped or removed, without compensation, from the commercial milk market due to qualifying weather events and the consequences of those weather events that inhibited delivery or storage of milk (e.g., power outages, impassable roads, infrastructure losses, etc.) during calendar years 2020, 2021 and 2022. Administered by the Farm Service Agency (FSA), signup for MLP begins Sept. 11 and runs through Oct. 16, 2023.
Background
On Dec. 29, 2022, President Biden signed into law the Extending Government Funding and Delivering Emergency Assistance Act (P.L. 117-43), providing $10 billion for crop losses, including milk losses due to qualifying disaster events that occurred in calendar years 2020 and 2021. Additionally, the Disaster Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2023 (Pub. L. 117-328) provides approximately $3 billion for disaster assistance for similar losses that occurred in calendar year 2022.
Eligibility
MLP compensates dairy operations for milk dumped or removed without compensation from the commercial milk market due to qualifying disaster events, including droughts, wildfires, hurricanes, floods, derechos, excessive heat, winter storms, freeze (including a polar vortex), and smoke exposure that occurred in the 2020, 2021 and 2022 calendar years. Tornadoes are considered a qualifying disaster event for calendar year 2022 only.
The milk loss claim period is each calendar month that milk was dumped or removed from the commercial market. Each MLP application covers the loss in a single calendar month. Milk loss that occurs in more than one calendar month due to the same qualifying weather event requires a separate application for each month.
The days that are eligible for assistance begin on the date the milk was removed or dumped and for concurrent days milk was removed or dumped. Once the dairy operation restarts milk marketing, the dairy operation is ineligible for assistance unless after restarting commercial milk marketing, additional milk is dumped due to the same qualifying disaster event. The duration of yearly claims is limited to 30 days per year for 2020, 2021 and 2022.
How to Apply
To apply for MLP, producers must submit:
- FSA-376, Milk Loss Program Application
- Milk marketing statement from the:
- Month prior to the month milk was removed or dumped.
- Affected month.
- Detailed written statement of milk removal circumstances, including the weather event type and geographic scope, what transportation limitations occurred and any information on what was done with the removed milk.
- Any other information required by the regulation.
If not previously filed with FSA, applicants must also submit all the following items within 60 days of the MLP application deadline:
- Form AD-2047, Customer Data Worksheet.
- Form CCC-902, Farm Operating Plan for an individual or legal entity.
- Form CCC-901, Member Information for Legal Entities (if applicable).
- Form FSA-510, Request for an Exception to the $125,000 Payment Limitation for Certain Programs (if applicable).
- Form CCC-860, Socially Disadvantaged, Limited Resource, Beginning and Veteran Farmer or Rancher Certification, (if applicable).
- A highly erodible land conservation (sometimes referred to as HELC) and wetland conservation certification (Form AD-1026 Highly Erodible Land Conservation (HELC) and Wetland Conservation (WC) Certification) for the MLP producer and applicable affiliates.
Most producers, especially those who have previously participated in FSA programs, will likely have these required forms already on file. However, those who are uncertain or want to confirm the status of their forms can contact their local FSA county office.
MLP Payment Calculation
The final MLP payment is determined by factoring the MLP payment calculation by the applicable MLP payment percentage.
The calculation for determining MLP payment is:
- ((Base period per cow average daily milk production x the number of milking cows in a claim period x the number of days milk was removed or dumped in a claim period) ÷ 100) x pay price per hundredweight (cwt.).
For MLP payment calculations, the milk loss base period is the first full month of production before the dumping or removal occurred.
The MLP payment percentage will be 90% for underserved producers, including socially disadvantaged, beginning, limited resource, and veteran farmers and ranchers and 75% for all other producers.
To qualify for the higher payment percentage, eligible producers must have a CCC-860, Socially Disadvantaged, Limited Resource, Beginning and Veteran Farmer or Rancher Certification, form on file with FSA for the 2022 program year.
Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) limitations do not apply to MLP, however the payment limitation for MLP is determined by the person’s or legal entity’s average adjusted gross farm income (income derived from farming, ranching and forestry operations). Specifically, a person or legal entity, other than a joint venture or general partnership, cannot receive, directly or indirectly, more than $125,000 in payments under MLP if their average adjusted gross farm income is less than 75% of their average AGI or more than $250,000 if their adjusted gross farm income is at least 75% of their average AGI.
More Information
In other FSA dairy safety-net support, Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) program payments have triggered every month, January through July, for producers who obtained coverage for the 2023 program year. July 2023’s income over feed margin of $3.52 per hundredweight (cwt.) is the lowest margin since DMC program benefits to dairy producers started in 2019. To date, FSA has paid more than $1 billion in DMC benefits to covered dairy producers for the 2023 program year.
Additionally, FSA closed the Organic Dairy Marketing Assistance Program (ODMAP) application period on Aug. 11.
On farmers.gov, the Disaster Assistance Discovery Tool, Disaster Assistance-at-a-Glance fact sheet and Loan Assistance Tool can help producers and landowners determine program or loan options. For assistance with a crop insurance claim, producers and landowners should contact their crop insurance agent. For FSA and NRCS programs, they should contact their local USDA Service Center.
FSA is updating the Livestock Indemnity Program (LIP) payment rate to support livestock producers in the Midwest who have lost cattle to the extreme heat and humidity experienced this summer. To help indemnify ranchers to reflect a trend towards higher cattle weights in feedlots, the 2023 LIP payment rate for beef calves over 800 pounds will increase from $1244 per head to $1618, an increase of $374.
LIP provides benefits to livestock owners and some contract growers for livestock deaths exceeding normal mortality from eligible adverse weather events, certain predation losses and reduced sales prices due to injury from an eligible loss. Indemnity payments are made at a rate of 75% of the prior year’s average fair market value of the livestock.
The updated LIP payment rate is effective immediately and will be applied retroactively starting Jan.1, 2023, for all eligible causes of loss including excessive heat, tornado, winter storms, and other qualifying adverse weather. Producers who have already received LIP payments for 2023 losses will receive an additional payment, if applicable, commensurate with this updated rate. For details on eligibility and payment rates, review the LIP fact sheet.
FSA recognizes that an annual update of LIP payment rates does not account for the volatile nature of livestock markets and is further exploring flexibilities to establish more current payment rates.
More Information On farmers.gov, the Disaster Assistance Discovery Tool, Disaster Assistance-at-a-Glance fact sheet, and Loan Assistance Tool can help producers and landowners determine program or loan options. For assistance with a crop insurance claim, producers and landowners should contact their crop insurance agent. For FSA and NRCS programs, they should contact their local USDA Service Center.
The USDA announced it will begin providing additional, automatic financial assistance for qualifying guaranteed Farm Loan Programs (FLP) borrowers who are facing financial risk. The announcement is part of the $3.1 billion to help certain distressed farm loan borrowers that was provided through Section 22006 of the Inflation Reduction Act.
Since the Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law by President Biden in August 2022, USDA has provided approximately $1.15 billion in assistance to more than 20,000 distressed borrowers as a part of an ongoing effort to keep borrowers farming, remove obstacles that currently prevent many borrowers from returning to their land, and improve the way that USDA approaches borrowing and loan servicing in the long-term. The financial assistance announced today will provide qualifying distressed guaranteed loan borrowers with financial assistance similar to what was already provided to distressed direct loan borrowers. Based on current analysis, the financial assistance announced today will assist an estimated approximately 3,500 eligible borrowers, subject to change as payments are finalized.
An FLP guaranteed loan borrower is distressed if they qualify under one of the options below. FLP guaranteed borrowers who qualify under multiple options will receive a payment based on the option that provides the greatest payment amount:
- Payment of any outstanding delinquency on all qualifying FLP guaranteed loans as of Oct. 18, 2022. This includes any guaranteed loan borrowers who did not receive an automatic payment in 2022 on that loan because they were not yet 60 days delinquent as of Sept. 30, 2022, as well as guaranteed borrowers that became delinquent on a qualifying FLP guaranteed loan between September 30, 2022, and Oct.18, 2022.
- Payment on a qualifying FLP guaranteed loan for which a guaranteed loan borrower received a loan restructure, which modified the guaranteed loan maturity date, between March 1, 2020, and Aug. 11, 2023. The payment amount will be the lesser of the post-restructure annual installment or the amount required to pay the loan in full. The guaranteed loan must not have been paid in full prior to Aug. 11, 2023.
- Payments on certain deferred amounts on qualifying FLP guaranteed loans, not to exceed $100,000, for guaranteed borrowers who received a deferral or another type of payment extension, for at least 45 days, between March 1, 2020, and Sept. 30, 2022, from their guaranteed lender on that qualifying guaranteed loan in response to COVID-19, disasters, or other revenue shortfalls. The Inflation Reduction Act payment amount will be the lesser of the most recent deferral or extension amount on the qualifying FLP guaranteed loan, or the amount required to pay that loan in full. The guaranteed loan must not have been paid in full prior to Aug. 11, 2023.
This assistance is only available for FLP guaranteed loan borrowers who did not or will not receive an initial payment on the same FLP guaranteed loan under Inflation Reduction Act assistance announced in October 2022.
Distressed guaranteed borrowers qualifying for this assistance will receive a United States Department of the Treasury check that is jointly payable to the borrower and the lender. These borrowers will also receive a letter from FSA informing them of Inflation Reduction Act assistance they will receive as well as instructions to make an appointment with their lender to process the payment and apply it to their qualifying guaranteed loan accounts. Guaranteed lenders will receive an email in the coming days informing them of this assistance and any next steps. Lenders will also receive letters informing them which borrowers will receive assistance and the amount of assistance they will receive.
Any distressed guaranteed borrowers who qualify for these forms of assistance and are currently in bankruptcy will be addressed using the same case-by-case review process announced in October 2022 for complex cases.
FSA will also provide relief to qualifying FLP guaranteed loan borrowers determined to be distressed borrowers based on liability for remaining federal debt subject to debt collection and garnishment after the liquidation of their guaranteed loan account as of July 31, 2023. This will allow some borrowers to potentially return to farming. Guaranteed borrowers who qualify for this assistance will have their federal debt paid automatically by FSA and will receive a letter informing them of the payment made on their federal debt.
All letters to qualifying guaranteed loan borrowers will contain instructions for opting out of assistance if a borrower chooses to do so.
Important Tax Information
Similar to other USDA Inflation Reduction Act assistance, payments provided to borrowers and payments to be applied to FSA farm loan accounts will be reported to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Borrowers receiving this assistance will receive a 1099 form from FSA. Please note that payments over $600 are subject to Federal and State Income Taxes and will be reflected on your annual 1099 form. Borrowers are encouraged to consult a tax professional with all tax-related questions regarding any Inflation Reduction Act assistance received. USDA also has tax-related resources at farmers.gov/taxes.
Individual Requests for Farmers Seeking Assistance
In addition to the automatic payments announced on August 11, 2023 for distressed guaranteed loan borrowers, FSA continues to accept and review individual distressed borrower assistance requests from direct loan borrowers who missed a recent installment or are unable to make their next scheduled installment on a qualifying direct FLP loan. All FSA direct borrowers should have received a letter detailing the eligibility criteria and process for seeking this type of assistance, which is available even before they become delinquent. As the letter details, borrowers who are within two months of their next installment may seek a cash flow analysis from FSA using a recent balance sheet and operating plan to determine their eligibility.
FSA direct borrowers also received a letter detailing an opportunity to receive assistance if they took certain extraordinary measures to avoid delinquency on their qualifying direct FLP loans, such as taking on or refinancing more debt, selling property, or cashing out retirement or college savings accounts.
Borrowers can submit requests for extraordinary measures or cash flow-based assistance in person at their local FSA office or by sending in a direct request using the farmers.gov 22006 assistance request portals at farmers.gov/loans/inflation-reduction-investments/assistance. All requests for assistance must be received by Dec. 31, 2023.
FSA Begins its second round of funding for the Organic Dairy Marketing Assistance Program
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is announcing a second round of payments for dairy producers through the Organic Dairy Marketing Assistance Program (ODMAP), providing an additional $5 million to help dairy producers mitigate market volatility, higher input and transportation costs, and unstable feed supply and prices that have created unique hardships in the organic dairy industry. USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) has already paid out $15 million in the first round of payments for eligible producers, bringing total ODMAP payments to $20 million. Producers paid during the first round will automatically receive payment in the second round and no action is needed.
FSA will begin the October payment cycles for the CRP and ARCPLC programs soon. Processing of payments for older CRP contracts and CRP-TIP contracts will begin on October 3. 2022 PLC, ARC-CO, and ARC-IC payment processing for crops that have triggered for payments will begin on October 5. Most CRP contracts approved in 2010 and later will have payments processed starting on October 10. Each payment must be reviewed by FSA staff for accuracy. County Offices do their best to get payments out timely, but with the high volume of payments being processed during this time the process can still take 1-3 weeks. Payments are direct deposited for most producers, and deposits should be seen in your bank accounts 2-3 days after being signed by FSA staff. Paper transaction statements with data about your payments will be mailed to you following processing. If you have not received your payments by the beginning of November, please contact your local office.
|
