Facing bone dry pastures as drought persists in Georgia, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced Tuesday that livestock producers in 20 counties can now apply for financial assistance to cope with their mounting losses.
With only scant rain falling across large portions of Georgia in the last two months, the latest U.S. Drought Monitor released last week shows that drought has deepened, particularly in the northwest and southwest corners of the state.
An area of “exceptional” drought — the worst level — has developed in portions of Catoosa, Chattooga, Dade, Walker and Whitfield counties in northwest Georgia. Parts of about a dozen more counties along a line from Polk County northeast to Rabun County are also being gripped by “extreme” or “severe” drought. Pockets of “extreme” and “severe” drought have also grown in the far southwest corner of the state.
“The severe and extreme drought conditions in our state have had a damaging impact on many livestock operations,” said Arthur Tripp, the state executive director for the USDA’s Farm Service Agency in Georgia.
The Farm Service Agency said it uses the U.S. Drought Monitor to determine which counties are eligible.
The funding is provided by the agency’s Livestock Forage Disaster Program. In a release, the agency encouraged farmers to gather and submit evidence of their 2023 losses with their application to speed up the process.
The move follows a disaster declaration issued on Nov. 6 by USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, which covered 11 of the same North Georgia counties, plus several surrounding ones. That declaration, also spurred by the drought, allows all farmers — not just livestock producers — to apply for emergency loans from the Farm Service Agency.
Fortunately, a large wildfire that was sparked by arson in late October in Walker County, 50 miles northwest of Dalton, is under control. According to the Georgia Forestry Commission’s wildfire tracker, the blaze is now 99% contained.
Drought in Georgia
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Tuesday that livestock producers in 20 Georgia counties can now apply for financial assistance to cope with their mounting losses. The counties are: Bartow, Catoosa, Chattooga, Cherokee, Dade, Dawson, Fannin, Floyd, Gilmer, Gordon, Lumpkin, Murray, Pickens, Union, Walker and Whitfield counties in North Georgia, and Decatur, Early, Miller and Seminole in South Georgia.
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