Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) today sent a letter to U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer, urging him to quickly implement the new agricultural disaster program authorized by the recently enacted Farm Bill in order to provide disaster assistance to California farmers impacted by ongoing drought conditions.

The text of the letter follows:


June 26, 2008


The Honorable Ed Schafer

United States Department of Agriculture

1400 Independence Avenue SW

Washington, DC 20520



Dear Secretary Schafer:

I write to alert you to the drought conditions in my State of California that are causing farmers to walk away from thousands of acres of crops, an event with the potential to cost California’s economy hundreds of millions of dollars in lost agricultural production.

California Governor Schwarzenegger recently declared a state of emergency for nine counties with severe water shortages, which followed his previous declaration of a statewide drought. In Fresno County, the most productive agricultural county in the United States, damages from unplanted acreage have already exceeded $73 million in short-term losses, over 40,000 acres were not planted, and production on another 170,000 acres could decrease by as much as 50 percent this year. Other California counties are hard at work assessing current and future possible losses, which could be extensive because there may be limited water supplies to irrigate already planted crops.

In addition, there are currently over 800 wildfires burning throughout California, and while most of the damage has occurred on national forest land, it is expected that when the 2008 fire season has ended, thousands of acres of crop and grazing land will have been damaged.

As you know, the recently enacted farm bill includes a new program to govern the manner in which USDA dispenses agricultural disaster funds. This new program changes the requirements for participation in disaster programs for farmers in California and throughout the country.

With the ongoing drought and wildfires in California and flooding that has damaged and destroyed crops in the Midwest, there is now an urgent need for USDA to develop and implement regulations related to this new disaster program. It is also essential that USDA communicate with farmers in my state dealing with the drought and wildfires so that they are aware of the level of assistance they can expect to receive from USDA disaster programs, in this crop year and in the future.

In particular, I call your attention to a section that requires the USDA Secretary to waive new requirements for non-insurable crops to provide disaster assistance to farmers who were not able to comply with new crop insurance requirements in 2008. This provision is important for farmers in California, many of whom grow non-insurable crops.

It is also my understanding that USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has begun exploring options through existing USDA conservation to provide assistance to growers to protect fallow acreage. Programs like the Environmental Quality Incentives Program could be used to help farmers introduce cover crops in drought areas, transfer farmland to more effective irrigation systems, and protect against the introduction of environmentally-harmful “dust bowls” that may result from the combination of fallow cropland and limited irrigation water.

I urge you to actively support these efforts, particularly in the coming months as the impacts of the drought and the wildfires become more apparent, and to encourage NRCS and other agencies at USDA to continue to be flexible and innovative in assisting California farmers as they deal with these conditions.

Getting through this period of drought and wildfires will not be easy for California’s farmers, but with USDA’s active assistance, we can stem the agricultural, economic, and environmental impacts of these events.



Sincerely,





Barbara Boxer

United States Senator





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