WASHINGTON, DC — Due to the

drought, U.S. Agriculture Secretary

Tom Vilsack designated nine Minnesota

counties as natural disaster areas Oct.

17.

The Minnesota Department of Agriculture

said farms in affected counties

may be eligible for help from the Farm

Service Agency, and from state Disaster

Recovery Loans.

In an Oct. 11 letter to Gov. Tim Walz,

Vilsack said he was designating Lincoln,

Lyon, MacLeod, Murray, Nicollet, Pipestone,

Redwood, Rice and Wright counties

as primary natural disaster areas.

According to the U.S. Drought Monitor,

those counties have experienced

either severe drought for eight or more

consecutive weeks, or extreme or exceptional

drought conditions.

In addition, a total of 20 counties in Minnesota and four in South Dakota were named as contiguous disaster counties. Brown, Nobles, Renville, Rock and Yellow Medicine counties were all on the list of contiguous counties.

In his letter, Vilsack said his disaster declaration would make farm operators in primary and contiguous counties eligible to be considered for assistance from the Farm Service Agency. That assistance could include FSA emergency loans. Farmers in eligible counties will have eight months to apply for emergency loans.

Local FSA offices can provide affected farmers with more information, Vilsack said. In social media posts on Monday, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture said affected counties may also be eligible for Disaster Recovery Loans.

The Oct. 13 drought map for Minnesota showed that parts of Lyon, Lincoln, Pipestone, Murray and Redwood counties were all in extreme drought as of last week.

National Weather Service precipitation data showed the abnormally dry fall the Marshall area has had. In September, Marshall received only 1.08 inches of precipitation, when the average for that month was 3.06 inches.

(dgau@marshall

independent.com).