The U.S. Department of Agriculture has designated Kings County in the Central Valley as a primary natural disaster area due to damages and losses caused by the drought.On Feb. 27, ten other counties in California received the same designation. Those counties are Fresno, Inyo, Kern, Lassen, Los Angeles, Modoc, Mono, Riverside, San Bernardino and Tulare.
Farmers and ranchers in counties contiguous to the primary disaster counties are also eligible for natural disaster assistance. The earlier primary disaster designation of ten counties applies to 17 additional contiguous counties.The current Kings County designation makes the following five contiguous counties also eligible: Fresno, Kern, Monterey, San Luis Obispo and Tulare.All the counties were designated natural disaster areas March 13 making all qualified farm operators in the designated areas eligible for low interest emergency loans from USDA’s Farm Service Agency, provided eligibility requirements are met.Farmers in eligible counties have eight months from the date of the declaration to apply for loans to help cover part 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 EM loan program, to help eligible farmers recover from adversity.