The U.S. Department of Agriculture has designated Granville County as a primary natural disaster area due to damages and losses caused by drought and excessive heat that occurred from April 1-July 31.
Farmers and ranchers in the following counties in North Carolina also qualify for natural disaster assistance because their counties are contiguous. Those counties are Durham, Franklin, Person, Vance and Wake.
Today’s announcement was the third USDA disaster designation affecting North Carolina counties since October. On Oct. 10, the agency designated Davidson and Yadkin counties as primary natural disaster areas because of excessive rain and flooding that occurred May 14-16. As a result of that designation, Davie, Forsyth, Guilford, Iredell, Montgomery, Randolph, Rowan, Stanly, Surry and Wilkes counties also qualified for assistance because they are contiguous.
On Oct. 17, USDA’s designation of 33 Virginia counties as disaster areas also affected the border counties of Caswell and Rockingham in North Carolina.
Disaster designations make 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 emergency loan program, to help eligible farmers recover from adversity.
Click here to read the USDA announcement regarding Granville County.