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Polk Farmers Get Federal Help for Freeze Damages

Lakeland Ledger – February 3, 2010

HAINES CITY | In the face of a ballooning federal deficit, Uncle Sam will come to the rescue of Florida farmers struggling to recover from last month’s brutal freezing weather.

“This will certainly help,” said David Boozer, executive director of the Florida Tropical Fish Farm Association Inc. in Winter Haven, responding to the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently designating 60 Florida counties as federal disaster areas.

The list includes Polk and every neighboring county. The declaration opens up several low-interest loan programs to freeze-stricken farmers in those counties.

Tropical fish farmers centered in Hillsborough and Polk counties suffered the biggest losses from the record-breaking streak of cold weather that hit most of the state in the first two weeks of the year.

Boozer estimated a 75 percent loss of Florida’s tropical fish stocks.

Tropical fish and other farmers would benefit from the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP), which provides for compensation for losses of more than 50 percent, according to a USDA overview. They could get payments equal to 55 percent of the market value of their losses above that threshold.

Additional payments are possible under the Supplemental Revenue Assistant Payments Program (SURE), Boozer said. That pays for up to 60 percent of crop losses not covered by other USDA programs.

Total annual payments under all USDA disaster programs are capped at $100,000. Eligibility is restricted to producers with $500,000 or less in nonfarm income.

Tropical fish farmers by law do not qualify for USDA low-interest loan programs, he said, but crop farmers will.

“The disaster declaration is an important tool as growers rebound from the long freeze in January,” said Michael Sparks, chief executive at Florida Citrus Mutual in Lakeland, the state’s largest growers’ representative. “The emergency loan programs and supplemental crop insurance payments should help eligible growers as we move through this season and into next season.”

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