Department of Agriculture January 28, 2011 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Farm Service Agency (FSA) is amending the Farm Loan Programs (FLP) direct loan servicing regulations to implement provisions of the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (the 2008 Farm Bill). This rule implements four amendments to the direct loan servicing regulations. The first amendment further emphasizes transitioning borrowers to private sources of credit in the shortest time practicable. The second amendment amends the Homestead Protection lease regulations by extending the right to purchase the leased property to the lessee's immediate family when the lessee is a member of a socially disadvantaged group. The third amendment amends the account liquidation regulations to suspend certain loan acceleration and foreclosure actions, including suspending interest accrual and offsets, if a borrower has filed a claim of program discrimination that has been accepted as valid by USDA and the borrower's account is at the point of acceleration or foreclosure. The fourth amendment amends the supervised bank account regulations to make the FSA regulations on insurable account limits consistent with the regulations of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

The National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) is soliciting nominations for veterinary service shortage situations for the Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program (VMLRP; [75 FR 20239- 20248]), as authorized under the National Veterinary Medical Services Act (NVMSA), 7 U.S.C. 3151a. This Notice initiates a 60-day nomination solicitation period and prescribes the procedures and criteria to be used by State, Insular Area, DC and Federal Lands (hereafter referred to as State(s)) Animal Health Officials (SAHO) in order to nominate veterinary shortage situations. All States are eligible to submit nominations, up to the maximum indicated for each State in this notice. NIFA is conducting this solicitation of veterinary shortage situation nominations under previously approved information collection (OMB Control Number 0524-0046).