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COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The State Executive Director for Ohio's Farm Service Agency (FSA), John Stevenson, announced that USDA enacted into law on June 18, 2008, the Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008, which has amended the Trade Act of 1974 to create an agricultural disaster relief trust fund and a supplemental agricultural disaster assistance program.

The trust fund provides five new disaster assistance programs that may be used to make payments to farmers and producers. The new disaster assistance programs are the:

• Supplemental Revenue Assistance Payments (SURE) Program,

• Livestock Forage Disaster Program (LFP),

• Livestock Indemnity Program (LIP),

• Tree Assistance Program (TAP), and

• Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honey Bees and Farm-Raised Fish (EALP) Program.

The SURE program will be available to eligible producers on farms in disaster counties, including contiguous counties that have incurred crop production losses and/or crop quality losses during the crop year. Or any farm in which, during the calendar year, the total loss of production on the farm because of weather is greater than 50 percent of the normal production of the farm.

The LFP program will be available to eligible livestock producers who suffered grazing losses for eligible livestock because of drought on land that is either native or improved pastureland with permanent vegetative cover or planted to a crop specifically for providing grazing. The LFP program will also be available to eligible livestock producers who suffered grazing losses for eligible livestock because of fire on rangeland managed by a Federal agency if the eligible livestock producer is prohibited from grazing the normal permitted livestock on the managed rangeland.

The LIP program will be available to eligible livestock producers on farms that have incurred livestock death losses in excess of normal mortality because of adverse weather, as determined by the Secretary during the calendar year, including losses because of hurricanes, floods, blizzards, disease, wildfires, extreme heat and extreme cold.

The TAP program is reauthorized, to provide assistance to orchardists and eligible nursery tree growers who produce nursery, ornamental, fruit, nut or Christmas trees for commercial sale that lost trees because of a natural disaster as determined by the Secretary. The EALP program will provide emergency relief to producers of livestock including horses, honey bees and farm-raised fish because of losses from adverse weather or other conditions, such as blizzards and wildfires, as determined by the Secretary.

For producers to be eligible for assistance in 2008 under the SURE, TAP, LFP and ELAP programs, producers must have obtained a plan of insurance for each insurable commodity on the farm and for each non-insurable commodity. According to the 2008 Act, a farm is defined as the sum of all crop acreage in all counties that is planted or intended to be planted for harvest by the eligible producer.

However for 2008, producers who do not meet the above listed requirements may be eligible if the producer visits their administrative county office and pays a fee comparable to the cost of NAP or FCIC coverage postmarked by no later than Sept. 16, 2008.

For more information about these programs, contact your local FSA office.