USDA information: www.usda.gov/safety

Rescue/Clean-up:

• USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is providing veterinary staff to support pet shelters in Iowa as needed.
• APHIS staff along with the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship and Iowa Department of Natural Resources are actively involved in efforts to recover and dispose of livestock carcasses.
• USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) workers assessing dam safety, identifying high risk areas and developing plans to reduce risk of additional flood damages.
• NRCS National Cartography and Geospatial Center in Fort Worth, Texas, has contacted affected States and offered to provide imagery upon request. This imagery is important for search and rescue, as well as damage assessments.
• NRCS is working with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and the Iowa Secretary of Agriculture to ensure producers-as well as local, state and federal agencies-have the information needed on suitable locations for disposal of animal carcasses by making soils suitability maps available on line.
• NRCS is working with local communities to determine Emergency Watershed Protection (EWP) requests. EWP recovery assistance is made available to project sponsors (local sponsors provide 25 percent of the cost of recovery) to alleviate watershed impairments that pose a threat to health, life or property.
• NRCS is working very closely with farmers who need repairs to Environmental Quality Improvement Plan conservation practices, local partners, FEMA, and the emergency operations center.

Food Assistance:

• As of June 30, USDA's Food and Nutrition Service has approved operation of the Disaster Food Stamp Program in a total of 133 Midwest counties declared by the President to be disasters due to recent flooding (37 counties in Indiana, 54 counties in Iowa, 13 counties in Nebraska, and 29 counties in Wisconsin).
• As of June 30, $6.3 million in Disaster Food Stamp Program benefits and supplements have been provided to nearly 14,000 new and nearly 6,000 ongoing households in Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, and Wisconsin.
• USDA's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) authorized State agencies administering the Summer Food Service Program to waive certain program requirements in disaster areas or where significant numbers of persons displaced by the disaster are being housed.
• In preparation for additional flooding, State agencies were contacted that could be affected. States report either no direct impact and/or contingency plan in place to avoid disruption of services.
• FNS continues to work with states on requests for Disaster Food Stamp Program assistance.
• FNS issued a statewide waiver in Iowa to allow retail food stores to accept food stamp/EBT benefits from food stamp customers in exchange for hot foods.
• Assessing commodity inventories in states to be able to respond should congregate feeding assistance is requested.

Housing:

• USDA is encouraging residents affected by the disaster to immediately apply for funding assistance under: Rural single family housing loan and grant programs Funds are available for housing repair, rehabilitation and home purchases; for home financing, USDA will assist with expediting lender approval and approval for access to the Guaranteed Underwriting Services; and offer streamlined loan processing
• Individuals needing payment assistance on their existing USDA Rural Development Single and Multi-family loans are encouraged to contact the Centralized Servicing Center at (800) 414-1226.

Community Assistance:

• Rural communities in Presidentially declared disaster areas will be given priority consideration for funding through USDA's Rural Development Rural Community Facilities programs.
• Facilities eligible for funding include schools, libraries, childcare centers, hospitals, medical clinics, assisted living facilities, fire and rescue stations, police stations, community centers, public buildings and transportation. Note: Funds are part of regular program funding and are not solely available for disaster areas.
• NRCS state operations are working with local communities to determine Emergency Watershed Protection requests in the disaster areas.

Business Assistance:

• Rural businesses in Presidentially declared disaster areas will be given priority consideration through the USDA Rural Development Rural Business Enterprise Grant program. Note: Funds are part of regular program funding and are not solely available for disaster areas.

Farmer and Rancher Assistance:

Emergency Programs -

• Eligible farmers can apply for Emergency Loans from USDA's Farm Service Agency (FSA) with at least a 30 percent production loss, or a physical loss to livestock. Applicants must be unable to get credit from other sources and be a family sized farm.
• Emergency loans may be used in combination with guaranteed loans or direct FSA loans to assist an eligible farmer in developing a viable financing package to recover from flood losses.
• Emergency Conservation Program (ECP) may be made available to eligible farmers in eligible counties to repair land damage and cost-share assistance - up to 75 percent of the cost.
• FSA is permitting farmers to move their livestock to conservation reserve program land without penalty and without a reduction in payments for 30 days or July 27, 2008 in 26 Iowa counties.
• FSA approved the use of conservation reserve program land in Iowa to spread manure as part of the recovery effort.

Crop Reporting -

• FSA sent notice to field offices extending the final 2008 crop reporting deadline to August 15, 2008.
• USDA's Risk Management Agency is extending until Aug. 15, 2008 the deadline for submitting acreage reports for all 2008 crop year spring-seeded acreage in areas impacted by flooding and extreme weather conditions. This additional time applies to spring-seeded crop acreage for all counties in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin.
• Producers are encouraged to contact their crop insurance agent for more information.
• USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) is assessing the impact on the 2008 crop acreage from the impact of the extraordinary rainfall and flooding in the Midwest.
• June 30, NASS released the 2008 Acreage report as scheduled at 8:30 a.m. EDT.
• NASS collected most of the acreage data during the first two weeks of June, before the majority of the flooding occurred.
• NASS re-interviewed producers during the week of June 23 in affected areas of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri and Wisconsin. This provided additional information about producers' harvesting intentions for corn, soybeans and sorghum.
• NASS will conduct a more extensive update of planted and harvested acreage in the impacted areas.
• The Aug. 12 Crop Production report will contain impact information along with data normally collected from across the country during this time.