Farm Service Agency August 2023 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) requirement, the Farm Service Agency (FSA) is requesting comments from all interested individuals and organizations on the three Farm Programs' information collection requests. The three collection requests in the Farm Programs are: Disaster AssistanceGeneral (0560- 0170), Transfer of Records between Counties (0560-0253) and Customer Data Worksheet Request for Business Partner Record (0560-0265). In the Disaster AssistanceGeneral, the information collection is needed to identify disaster areas and establish eligibility for both primary disaster counties and those counties contiguous to such disaster counties for assistance from FSA. This assistance includes FSA emergency loans which are available to eligible and qualified farmers and ranchers. In the Customer Data Worksheet Request for Business Partner Record, FSA is using the collected information in support of documenting critical producer data (for example, customer name, current mailing address, tax identification number) made at the request of the producer to obtain, correct or update their information. In the Transfer of Records Between Counties, FSA is using the collected information to approve or disapprove the transfer of farm records from one FSA county office to another.

The Farm Service Agency (FSA) is announcing an increase in the initial funding for EGSFP to $80 million, which will be the final funding amount for the program, from the initially announced $20 million due to the high demand for EGSFP. FSA published a notice of funding availability (NOFA) notice on March 16, 2023, announcing the availability of $20 million for EGSFP. EGSFP provides financial assistance to eligible grain producers who were affected by an eligible disaster event that damaged or destroyed local commercial grain elevators. EGSFP is cost-share assistance to construct storage facilities needed to meet on-farm grain storage capacity and handling needs necessary to support the marketing of grain for producers. This notice updates the initial funding amount for the program from $20 million to $80 million and closes the application period for the program due to the current volume of applications received. This notice will not change any other information in the original EGSFP NOFA.