LINCOLN — Nebraska farmers across 21 counties impacted by major wildfires in March and April now have access to federal financial loan assistance through the USDA.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins approved the request from Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen. The request covers four “primary” counties — Garden, Grant, Lincoln and Morrill — and 17 “contiguous” counties: Arthur, Banner, Box Butte, Cherry, Cheyenne, Custer, Dawson, Deuel, Frontier, Hayes, Hooker, Keith, Logan, McPherson, Perkins, Scotts Bluff and Sheridan.
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Affected farmers can go through their local U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency office for additional information and help with applications.
“We appreciate the swift response by Secretary Brooke Rollins and the USDA to this request,” Pillen said in a statement announcing Rollins’ approval. “This provides an avenue for producers and farmers to receive much-needed financial support as they continue to deal with the aftermath of the Morrill, Cottonwood, Ashby and Minor fires.”
Federal assistance approved
Any awarded funds may be used to restore or replace essential property, pay production costs associated with the disaster year, pay essential family living expenses, reorganize the family farming operation or refinance certain non-real estate operating debts, according to the USDA.
Eligibility requirements include that an applicant is an established farmer and the owner or tenant of the farm at the time of the disaster, and the person must intend to continue farming.
All applications must be submitted within the next eight months.
President Donald Trump last week also approved a federal disaster declaration, which opens up federal funds for five counties to recover from damage to public infrastructure. In addition to the primary counties in the Rollins declaration, Trump’s designation includes Arthur County.
Looking out for neighbors
State Sen. Paul Strommen of Sidney represents Legislative District 47 in western Nebraska, all but one county of which is covered under the Rollins designation. He also represents all but Lincoln County of the five counties hit hardest and covered under the Trump-issued declaration.
The declarations also cover legislative districts represented by state Sens. Brian Hardin of Gering, Tanya Storer of Whitman, Mike Jacobson of North Platte and Teresa Ibach of Sumner.
Strommen said the assistance will be huge and help counties be reimbursed more quickly for damages. He said Garden County, of which more than 40% was burned, especially needs the help as officials pay for emergency services and road repairs while taking a “massive hit” to property valuations that will have long-term consequences.
For his constituents in western Nebraska, Strommen said damage was “extensive,” and some Nebraskans lost everything.
Still, many ask about others, including how to ensure local schools and counties are maintained.
“It’s actually interesting when you talk to them because they’re really concerned about their neighbors,” Strommen said. “They don’t ever really talk about themselves, how this is affecting them personally.”
He continued: “It’s always, ‘Well, we don’t particularly need the help because so and so, they really saw damage.’ And it’s amazing, you’ll talk to people who had 90% of their property burned, and they’re talking about how somebody else needs it more than they do.”
Recovery continues
Strommen said Morrill County was also hit by massive flooding recently. Multiple bridges were washed out, two of which were main thoroughfares connecting to Scottsbluff in the Panhandle. He said he saw 30- to 40-foot ditches dug out by storms, residents who lost multiple divots and other Nebraskans who lost cattle and calves.
“The flooding in Morrill County was definitely underreported, but it’s as, if not equally, devastating to the folks up in Morrill County as the fire was,” Strommen said.
He is working with Pillen, U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., and U.S. Rep. Adrian Smith, R-Neb., to keep them updated.
“I don’t think people realize just how important it is to get that,” Strommen said. “I think we saw what happened on the eastern side of the state after the flooding [in 2019], how devastating it was for them, and to be able to get those federal funds to come in and offset those costs really, really does help quite a bit.”
‘We need rain’
As for what western Nebraska needs, Strommen said simply: “Rain. We need rain.”
Nebraska continues to face one of the worst droughts. All of Strommen’s district is between “severe” and “exceptional” drought, according to the most recent state-level data from the U.S. Drought Monitor, which is produced through a partnership among the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the USDA, NOAA and NASA.
Nearly 26% of Nebraska is at the “severe” or “exceptional” drought designation. More than 74% of the state faces at least “moderate” drought conditions.
“We definitely need something to click out here that changes the direction for these folks because they’re really getting hammered hard,” Strommen said.
The assistance from others, as well as the “outpouring of support” since the historic fires, has been “unbelievable,” Strommen said. He added that the call to support local farmers and ranchers, who are also facing depressed commodity prices, remains extremely important.
“These guys get up every day to try and feed the state and feed the country, and anything that we can possibly do to support them, it’s— I mean, they really do, they work their butts off, and they continue to work their butts off,” Strommen said. “They haven’t slowed down.”
This story is provided by States Newsroom, a nonprofit state news network and Blox Digital content partner.
