Farmers in Orange County”™s black dirt region are lauding a recent decision by the U. S. Department of Agriculture declaring the region a primary natural disaster area after the devastating mid-April flood.
That distinction means farmers may now apply for federal aid. The aid will be in the form of loans, not grants.
The damages area farmers suffered stem from the nor”™easter that ravaged the region April 16.
Onion Farmer Chris Pawelski, the communications director for the Orange County Vegetable Grower”™s Association, said there are several advantages for farmers in the region due to the disaster declaration.
First, he said, farmers receiving federal loans can push back their payment schedule, because the Agriculture Department (USDA) would take the disaster designation into account.
More importantly, he said being designated a natural disaster area allows Orange County farmers to become eligible for federal money whenever Congress passes an ad hoc disaster-relief bill.
“So two years down the road, for example, if a bill is passed there might be money available that we would be eligible for,” he said.
The counties of Dutchess, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan and Ulster, as well as neighboring counties in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, are also eligible for the aid since they are contiguous to Orange County.
Pawelski praised the efforts of U.S. Rep John Hall (D-Dover Plains), and U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton for helping Orange County receive the designation.
Hall also last week called on the USDA to forgive any balances on outstanding federal loans that were taken out by onion growers in the black dirt region following severe weather and crop damage that occurred in the summer of 1996.
In July of 1996, a hailstorm struck approximately 2,500 acres of onion fields in Orange County. Many of the onion leaves were damaged, allowing water and bacteria to seep into the hearts of the plants. Following the storm, local farmers asked USDA permission to destroy crops, but were informed that under existing crop insurance policies it would be considered a sound farming process to care for the onion crop and bring it to harvest.
Since refusal to abide by USDA”™s guidance would have resulted in forfeiture of crop insurance indemnity, Orange County”™s onion growers were forced to finance multiple pesticide applications, hand weeding, harvest preparation, grading, and packaging, said Hall.
In September 1996, the USDA switched its policy and gave the onion growers permission to destroy the onions in the field. At that point, however, the vast majority of farmers had already completed the harvest, spending large amounts of capital to care for the rotten, unmarketable crops, according to Hall. Consequently, growers in the region were forced to seek funding through large USDA loans to survive.
The remaining balances of these loans total under $1 million.
“These loans, which were taken out in large part as a result of inconsistent or contradictory policy guidance from USDA, continue to impose an unfair financial burden on local onion growers,” Hall wrote in a letter to agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns. “In light of the new operational challenges facing these growers as the result of recent, severe flooding, I urge you to eliminate this ongoing cost by forgiving the remaining balance of the loans issued between September of 1996 and July of 1997 to farmers in the Black Dirt Region of Orange County, New York.”
In a letter to the USDA, Schumer also called for the forgiveness of the loans.
“It is usually financially necessary for farmers to stop farming a field in the case that a large portion of the crop is lost,” he wrote. “Once a crop has died, continuing to farm that acreage will only lose money for the farmer.”
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