Gianforte Secures Federal Drought Disaster Aid For 10 More Counties
After declaring a statewide drought emergency last week and following his request to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte has announced USDA has designated 10 counties as natural disaster counties.
“I appreciate Secretary Vilsack responding to my request and designating additional Montana counties as natural disaster areas, but there’s more USDA needs to do now to help our ag producers,” the governor said. “With every region of the state facing severe to extreme drought conditions, I continue to call on USDA to declare the entire state a drought disaster area.” U.S. Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont, commended the action.
“The disaster designations declared by USDA Secretary Vilsack are an important step to sustain Montana’s agriculture community as it suffers under these extreme drought conditions. I appreciate Secretary Vilsack’s initiative to ensure that Montana’s farmers are able to get the help they need before more livelihoods are destroyed or damaged,” Rosendale said.
“Our ag producers are experiencing devastating impacts to forage and stock water availability due to drought conditions,” Gianforte added. “They need relief as quickly as possible and cannot afford unnecessary delays from the federal government.”
Hill and Wheatland counties have been designated as primary disaster areas, with eight contiguous counties also eligible for assistance from the Farm Service Agency, including Blaine, Chouteau, Fergus, Golden Valley, Judith Basin, Meagher, Liberty and Sweet Grass counties.
To date, USDA has designated 26 of Montana’s 56 counties as primary or contiguous counties for disaster designation areas.
On July 1, Gov. Gianforte issued an executive order declaring a statewide drought emergency in Montana.
As of June 22, approximately 91 percent of Montana faced abnormally dry to extreme conditions. At the same time last year, approximately 52 percent of the state faced similar conditions.
