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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Some AZ Farmers Eligible for Emergency Loans

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Monday, February 16, 2015   

PHOENIX - It may only be February, but several drought-ravaged counties in Arizona and other Western states already are under a "primary natural disaster declaration."

Val Dolcini, administrator for the Farm Service Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture, says the action opens up financial assistance programs to farmers and ranchers who have endured losses and damages because of the recent drought.

"Designation is sort of the door-opener for these benefits that could be low-interest emergency loans, but it could also be participation in the Emergency Conservation Program, or a long list of other USDA programs," says Dolcini.

In Arizona, the designation applies to Apache, Cochise, Gila, Graham and Pinal counties as well as seven contiguous counties. Regionally, the USDA has declared primary natural disaster areas in 256 counties in California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah.

The drought situation may not improve any time soon. The most recent National Climate Assessment report conducted by the U.S. Global Change Research Program concluded that as temperatures continue to rise, droughts in the southwest will be longer, and drier conditions will cause more major wildfires. Dolcini says climate change has impacted farming nationwide.

"It's hard to deny the climate has changed over the years, and the impact that has on industries like agriculture is also hard to deny," Dolcini says. "We've seen incredible droughts over the course of the last four or five years, really, throughout many parts of the United States."

The USDA has issued natural disaster declarations for several years as the drought has continued and intensified across much of the western U.S. Farmers and ranchers remain eligible for the USDA assistance programs for eight months from the date the designation was issued.


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