This Secretarial natural disaster designation allows the United States Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency to extend much-needed emergency credit to producers recovering from natural disasters through emergency loans. 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 D2 Drought-Severe for 8 or more consecutive weeks or D3 Drought-Extreme or D4 Drought-Exceptional.
The primary counties of this declaration are Cherokee and Crawford, the contiguous counties also considered eligible are Bourbon, Labette and Neosho.
