{"id":18350,"date":"2025-08-05T23:24:39","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T23:24:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-county-farmers-eligible-for-usda-emergency-loans\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:03:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:03:29","slug":"montezuma-county-farmers-eligible-for-usda-emergency-loans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-county-farmers-eligible-for-usda-emergency-loans\/","title":{"rendered":"Montezuma County farmers eligible for USDA emergency  loans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=51aba12b-d0be-4d0c-ab0e-cb9302b8876c&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1208\" alt=\"A lack of U.S. Department of Agriculture-certified meat processing plants in the area forces livestock owners to ship cattle out of the region. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">A lack of U.S. Department of Agriculture-certified meat processing plants in the area forces livestock owners to ship cattle out of the region. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Jim Mimiaga<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this summer, Montezuma County was one of six in Southwest Colorado designated a \u201cprimary natural disaster area for drought.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The designation came from the U.S. Department of Agriculture\u2019s Farm Service Agency. It named Dolores, La Plata, San Juan, Archuleta and San Miguel counties, too.<\/p>\n<p>Zooming out, \u201c34 counties in Colorado have been declared primary natural disaster areas for drought,\u201d a USDA spokesperson told <em id=\"emphasis-b02752729d3311ddf3cfea997e7ebee3\">The Journal<\/em>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"naviga-pdf-embed\"><iframe class=\"article-pdf\" src=\"https:\/\/dur-prod-public-pdfs.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/KyANBQEn932lwhiC8fJodCigWbQ.pdf\" style=\"width:100%;height:500px;border:1px solid #ddd\" loading=\"lazy\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dur-prod-public-pdfs.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/KyANBQEn932lwhiC8fJodCigWbQ.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">US Drought Monitor.pdf (Download PDF)<\/a><\/p>\n<p><\/p><\/iframe>\n<p class=\"naviga-pdf-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/dur-prod-public-pdfs.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/KyANBQEn932lwhiC8fJodCigWbQ.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">US Drought Monitor.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>That means producers in those counties can apply for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fsa.usda.gov\/resources\/programs\/emergency-farm-loans\" id=\"link-7a0dc443403414cd731cc2fad9649b46\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">emergency farm loans<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Such loans can be used for a variety of things, like replacing or restoring \u201cessential property,\u201d paying \u201cproduction costs associated with the disaster year \u2026 (or for) essential family living expenses,\u201d a USDA spokesperson said.<\/p>\n<p>The money can also be used to \u201creorganize the family farming operation and refinance certain non-real estate operating debts,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n<p>Really, \u201cthe aim is to help producers recover swiftly and maintain the viability of their operations during and after disaster recovery,\u201d the Farm Service Agency\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fsa.usda.gov\/resources\/programs\/emergency-farm-loans\" id=\"link-b79e080335448e790f471010503bd88e\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">website<\/a> reads.<\/p>\n<p>To qualify, applicants \u201cmust prove actual production or physical losses\u201d and \u201cdemonstrate an inability to obtain sufficient credit from other sources to cover their disaster-related need.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRepayment terms vary,\u201d the website reads, depending on what the money is used for. As of Aug. 1, the interest rate for such loans is 3.750%.<\/p>\n<p>The application deadline is Feb. 2, 2026, which is eight months after the drought designation was made.<\/p>\n<p>The USDA spokesperson said that although the emergency loan program has long been part of the Farm Service Agency, \u201cvery few producers in Southwest Colorado have taken advantage\u201d of it.<\/p>\n<p>In Montezuma County, a service center with farm loan staff is at 628 W. Fifth St. in Cortez.<\/p>\n<p>To find more details on a service center near you, check online <a href=\"https:\/\/www.farmers.gov\/working-with-us\/service-center-locator?fips=08083&amp;state=CO&amp;stateCode=08&amp;cntyCode=083\" id=\"link-cd6e9fbd82d017043cec3d7c360d74ad\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">farmers.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>farmers have taken advantage of the decade-long program<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18351,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,402,1587,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-18350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-drought","tag-farms","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18350"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77217,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18350\/revisions\/77217"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18350"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=18350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}