Barnesville Area Experiencing Extreme Drought

Over the past week, Southeastern Ohio areas experiencing Extreme Drought now covers all of Belmont, Monroe and Noble counties as shown in the graphic released by a coalition of federal agencies on August 27.

Rain ranging from .25 to 1.0 inch fell locally Saturday. This came, after several Friday night football games were delayed due to lightning visible in the sky but no rain fell.

The Belmont Soil and Water Conservation District posted the following late week:

Due to the extreme drought in parts of Ohio, the USDA, Farm Service Agency now has a disaster assistance program available to eligible livestock producers.

The Livestock Forage Disaster Program (LFP) offers payments to eligible livestock producers with eligible livestock. You must also be a producer of grazed forage crop acreage.

The payments help producers with grazing losses suffered on native or improved pastureland due to a qualifying drought. This can be land with eligible permanent or planted grazing cover.

For grazing losses due to drought, the Farm Service Agency (FSA) will calculate payments equal to 1, 3, 4 or 5 times the LFP monthly payment rate. The payment rate for drought is equal to 60% of the lessor of the monthly feed cost for all covered livestock or the normal carrying capacity of the eligible grazing land.

For more information, you can visit farmers.gov or contact the Guernsey/Noble/Belmont/Monroe FSA Office at deborah.finley@usda.gov.