Programs enable FSA to assist Kansas agriculture producers

Written by Bill Harmon - Farm Service Agency Wednesday, 21 March 2007 18:08

The mission of the Farm Service Agency is to help ensure the well being of Amer­ican agriculture. In Kansas, this mission is being fulfilled through the administration of more than 20 various programs and direct benefits that serve the state’s farmers and ranchers.

FSA farm loan programs are an important source of credit to family farmers unable to obtain credit from conventional sources at reasonable rates and terms. Kansas FSA county offices approved 907 farm operating, ownership, and emergency type loans totaling to $89,002,542.

Farm programs are designed to improve the economic stability and viability of the agriculture sector and to help insure the production of an adequate and reasonably priced supply of food and fiber for American citizens.

Kansas farmers and ranchers received just over $990 million in program benefits in fiscal year 2006, representing a period from Oct. 1, 2005, through Sept. 30, 2006—98 percent of these payments were from Direct and Counter-cyclical, Conservation Reserve, Loan Deficiency, and commodity CCC loan programs.

Other programs that Kansas producers received benefits or payments from included crop disaster assistance, livestock assistance, noninsured crop disaster assistance, farm storage facility loans, milk income loss contracts, and hard white wheat incentives.

Marion County FSA issued $9 million in USDA payments during fiscal year 2006. These benefits were disbursed among 1,900 program eligible farms. 



Bill Harmon is executive director of the Marion County FSA office in Marion.