August 30, 2006

 

US cattle, sheep ranchers get US$50 million in drought aid

 

 

Many US cattle and sheep ranchers are being hit hard by drought conditions this year and the federal government is responding with US$50 million in funds that will be distributed by state governors, the US Department of Agriculture said Tuesday (Aug 29).

 

The US$50 million is just a part of a larger US$780 million package, the most of which will go to early payments to crop farmers.

 

The Western Plains is home to most of the drought-affected ranchers, said US Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, who is visiting South Dakota on Tuesday.

 

"As I walked a pasture where grass should be high and growing and cattle grazing, I saw only dirt," he told reporters in a teleconference.

 

Drought, he said, is making ranchers make tough decisions on culling cattle.

 

Johanns said USDA data shows that "64 percent of the US inventory of beef cows are breeding stock" and stressed concern that too many "ranchers feel the need to cull their cows in herds of replacement heifers," reducing breeding capacity".

 

Most of the assistance announced Tuesday--about US$700 million--will go to cotton and sorghum farmers in the form of early "counter-cyclical" aid payments that help farmers in times of low prices.

 

Johanns briefly mentioned poor wheat yields in the Tuesday teleconference, but representatives for wheat farmers say they will get nothing from the drought package even though the producers are some of the hardest hit.

 

"The disaster relief package announced Tuesday by (USDA) will provide no relief to wheat growers," National Association of Wheat Growers President Dale Schuler said Tuesday. "Wheat growers across the country are facing the worst droughts in decades."

 

Schuler said the USDA's counter cyclical assistance--a programme that delivers aid in times of low prices--does not work for wheat farmers during droughts.

 

"The counter cyclical payment is triggered when crop prices drop," he said. "Shortages of wheat caused by drought and other disasters have caused prices to go above the counter cyclical trigger."