Aloha and thank for tuning in to the Livestock Wala'au season 2! In this episode we will be talking with Kristen Kiriu, Farm Program Chief/District Director and Richard Nichols, Farm Loan Chief, from the USDA Farm Service Agency with the Hawaii & Pacific Basin State Office. They will be sharing about livestock and farm programs available for producers in their region and other resources the FSA can assist with. Listen in to learn more!
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Aloha and thank for tuning in to the Livestock Wala'au season 2! In this episode we will be talking with Kristen Kiriu, Farm Program Chief/District Director and Richard Nichols, Farm Loan Chief, from the USDA Farm Service Agency with the Hawaii & Pacific Basin State Office. They will be sharing about livestock and farm programs available for producers in their region and other resources the FSA can assist with. Listen in to learn more!
Episode Resources:
Mahalo for listening & hope you will participate in providing feedback about our podcast!
FEEDBACK FEST LINK
Check out our other social media platforms!
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Thanks for listening! Check out our other social media platforms!
Aloha Today's episode is brought to you by the Western extension Risk Management Education Center, USDA NIFA and the University of Hawaii College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources and the livestock extension group.
Melelani Oshiro:Aloha welcome everyone to the livestock wala'au a podcast aims to provide educational support information, guidance and outreach to our livestock stakeholders in Hawaii. We are your hosts Mele Oshiro and Shannon Sand. And today we're going to be talking about different FSA programs, what they are, how to find them and if you qualify, and today we have here Kristin Kiriu, and Buddy Nichols. That's going to be discussing some of the programs with us. Thank you guys so much for joining us and taking time out of your day to be on the podcast.
Shannon Sand:Yeah. Kristen Kiriu is a farm program chief for FSA in Hawaii. Are you in the Pacific Islands as well? Kristin or?
Kristin Kiriu:Yeah, so we kind of cover both Hawaii and the pack basin which kind of encompasses American Samoa, Guam and CNMI.
Shannon Sand:Okay, and then buddy Nichols is a farm loan chief. And buddy, I'm assuming you cover the same territory as well then correct?
Buddy Nichols:Yep, that's correct. All right. Great, basic. Okay.
Shannon Sand:All right. So let's start with Kristin. How did you end up working for FSA?
Unknown:Yeah, so first of all, I like to thank both you know, Shannon and mele for having us on the livestock Walaau podcast today. A little bit about me. I was born and raised in Hilo went to Hilo High then to u h. Hilo. I graduated from UT Law with both animal science pre vet biology bachelor degrees, then, you know, life happened and I had to get a real job. So I ran the game, you know, and I I originally started with FSA in 2010. As a temporary program technician in the Hawaii County office here in Hilo. I became a permanent program technician in 2011. And I worked in that capacity until 2015. During that time, I also did like night and weekend school, and I got to GIS or Geographic Information System certificate from HCC or Hawaii Community College. And then in 2015, I got a different position within FSA in the Hawaii impact basin state office as the agriculture program and GIS specialist, which then led me to my current and new, only a few official weeks in position as the farm program chief in the FSA state office. And I did want to say just a little bit about FSA. We use a lot of acronyms, not FSA, but I just kind of wanted to let everybody know that FSA stands for Farm Service Agency. We are one of the many federal agencies within the United States Department of Agriculture or USDA. More specifically, we are part of the farm production and conservation or F PAC mission area. And we are actually sister agencies with NRCS, or the Natural Resource Conservation Service, and Rma, the risk management agency. So we work pretty closely with both of those agencies as well. I think in short, you know, FSA provides services to farmers and ranchers through loans, conservation programs, disaster recovery assistance, and other miscellaneous program payments. But he and I are both really excited to be here today to talk about our programs. And we are both very passionate about helping our local communities. So yeah, we're excited to be here.
Shannon Sand:We're excited to have you Thank you. Nice. So buddy, do you want to give a little bit of information about you how you came to be with FSA and in your current position?
Buddy Nichols:So I'd love to first off, I'm also very happy to be here. I stock are very fond of my heart since that's where I come from. I was born and raised on a dairy farm fourth generation farmer did that went to school, got my degree, went back to the farm, bought my father out which I farmed for about 35 years. Eventually had some 6000 headed cows I hired 60 employees a bottling plant, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Shannon Sand:While you're a busy person, that's all I can think of. Like I've had a little bit of work work. I've done a little work with the dairy industry and I'm like, that's a lot hours especially sick stuff and that's what I was thinking I was like, wow,
Unknown:yeah, eight different dairies raised hogs for ages but background for he was always involved in USDA because that's a big part of it. Did real crops and did you know came from originally a vet Small Farm so on and so forth. So I've seen a lot of agriculture been part of their culture community was on the local local boards, and so on and so forth. So and then I when I recorded it, I decided 2008 that we wanted to come back and play another day. So we sold all the cattle. And so I started working with USDA at that time, starting farm programs, this is the Colorado farm programs and moved to farm loan and basically moved out here as farm loan manager in Maui. And last year got chief's position here on farm loans.
Melelani Oshiro:Congratulations. Yeah, do.
Unknown:But yeah, I love. I love the I've talked since I've been here I've been, you know, as a member of the Ag leadership group, Master, master gardeners, attending law university classes to learn the environment and the horticulture and the plant and the animals and plants and all that good stuff over the islands because it's great to be able to see things grow year round.
Shannon Sand:Yeah, it's very,
Melelani Oshiro:one advantage right of being here in the tropics, you can have that urine. Well, congratulations to both of you and your new acquisitions. Right. And thanks, again for being here. But you know, FSA, I think for livestock folks are very important. There's a lot of programs out there. And I think some not everybody knows about them, you know, some of our smaller producers may not know what's going on. So you just want to share some of the programs that you guys currently have out there and even if they're not available right now, but you know, where the resources folks can go ahead and find those programs.
Unknown:Yeah, definitely. Buddy. I'll turn it over to you for the loan stuff and then I can kind of go through the disaster assistance stuff after that from the low sigh Yeah, with livestock great, great, great bird good because of livestock. Well, we can do it just livestock mama cows, we can blow money for for the cows. For any part of the livestock actually annual operating or the mama cow herself. Bulls included anything that is going to produce the offspring we can lend money to. And we can do that for seven years, which is extremely usually the full lifetime of the mama cow. If at all, maybe a little shorter. But anyway, yeah, for seven years, our interest rate right now is little high is 2.875. I seen it as low as 1.25. We don't need that we can utilize the carousel for collateral. We can also utilize equipment and other things we can lend money for anything that has to do with once you produce the crop, the crop and two includes the calf, the kid goat, the piglet, it doesn't matter what we're talking about. Once you produce it, we can we can help you take it all the way to consumer. So if you're doing a value added product if you're taking it all the way to even I got a food truck to sell hamburgers from reason my calves, I can take it from the time from this from the semen. We're getting the cow pregnant all the way through to the spoon and the napkin which are used at your truck.
Melelani Oshiro:Oh, wow. Yeah, I didn't know that either. Yeah, yeah, it's
Unknown:taking it all the way this is value added. From going just selling your livestock on the wholesale for for rates and shipping them to the mainland to finish out course, you know, we have the ability to take it all the way to the to the consumer. Nice. So as we move away from bringing a price taker, which is this is what's being put cattle or sold at the Chicago Board of Trade. Or we can take it right to the consumer and we become a price maker. price maker means or we're making our price based on what we have in it, what we need for our family, what we need for our farm what we need for our community, and we can take it right to the consumer. So if I'm selling a $10 Hamburger, versus a 70 cent steer, either way, we can help you all the way. That's awesome. And like I said, collateral wise, whatever we lend you the money for that's what we take for collateral. We do not need your firstborn. So it works out very well that way. We also lend money for equipment for refrigeration for the food truck itself for the chair. We don't care. Once you grow it once you raise it once you have it, we can help you all the way through with a farm loan program. We can also help you buy real estate. Our limit on real estate is we can lend you $600,000 The real estate will cover itself. We also can utilize that $600,000 for a down payment and hook you up with a lending institution that will cover the rest and we also have a guarantee program to help them As other lending institutions lend you more money, to buy more acreage to run more cattle, to raise more crops, so on and so forth. So there's a lot of different things we can do once you start doing anything in farming. So that's kind of what the farm runs about. One of the great things we have is of course, is our youth program.
Shannon Sand:Yeah, I was gonna ask about that because my niece nephew use that, like, many years.
Unknown:Yeah, it's a great program. Yeah, we can learn, we can learn for each year $5,000 Every year, and they can use it to re to buy the initial hog or sheep or steer, or they can use it to buy the mama cows so they can raise their own hogs, or their own sow or whatever. So they can raise their own and sell their own daughter for ages as well as they start their genetic her. I had one young fellow that started off at eight years old and borrowed $5,000 and bought three cows. And from there when he graduated and went to college, yet heard of 50 counts, wow. So that started off every year by him taking it and taking that money and putting it to work. So it's a great program to help kids get started in. In AG, particularly with livestock because it's a forage based program. And also rely, you know, we can also use it through FFA, if FFA is utilizing something that we can get a return from the show some kind of payback. It can be used for crops. If, if a youth is involved in for HF, there's a crop project. Here on the islands, we don't see crop projects on some of the mainland we did. But however, it doesn't really matter. We can utilize it in the forage program very well. Great way for the kids to get started a great way for them to start their their future and start their own herd, particularly with the help of mom and dad.
Shannon Sand:Yeah, it was like that's, that's what my niece sounds like. I think that's such a great program and replace
Unknown:all livestock. It doesn't display this cattle applies to your sheep and goats and hogs and rabbits and turkeys and chickens and wood ever.
Shannon Sand:Yeah.
Unknown:It's a farm critter. We can help them with that. So
Shannon Sand:yeah, yeah, I know a couple of them did it for their hogs, depending on the year. So yeah. Right. Yeah. It's a great program. I was like, I'm probably biased because, you know, I love my niece and nephew, and they enjoyed it. Oh, great. Yeah.
Unknown:What are the quickly I want to say about the football program, it's our job to make the farmer so successful that they pay us off. It's a great day when we can graduate them and they go to another lender, or they just pay us off. Someone it's called supervised lending a bit so that we can help them get their financials together, and we can help them be totally successful. It's also based on the concept that Mother Nature is going to spank us as farmers. Yeah, we just don't know when we know she's going to do it. He or she, she's gonna do it's gonna happen. But we just don't know when so we have programs and Kristen will talk about those. But in the farm loan program, we can also come in and restructure farmers work with farmers. That's the only reason I'm here. I wouldn't be here. I got my MBA in accounting back in 2010, something like that. But you know, I wouldn't be here unless I knew this worked really well for farmers, because we know we have our challenges. We have the Vit COVID I call it the dead because on personality,
Shannon Sand:it does. It affected everybody differently over the last couple of years, you know, so
Unknown:we have things that happen in life. That's life. So the program is designed to help us get through those tougher times. And this program is all about that. Yeah, USDA is based on a Roman concept back in the Roman days that hungry people revolt. So USDA wants to keep everybody fed, particularly here on the islands, you know, we have such an important amount of food. We're our goal, at least on our farm loan for the state of Hawaii and for the basin is can we make enough of an impact and get enough money out there? So that perhaps instead of 85% of our crops being hauled in here, maybe we can get that down to 8080? Yeah, yeah, this past year so far. We put out about$17 million. We're halfway through the year. So we're looking for the normal year there was 600 I think million. Might even be Yeah, it's million. I don't know if it's a billion or not. Anyway, there's a lot of money that the federal government has put out to be used for loans for farmers. So we're not running out of government support on that. So, yep, that's our program. So you're welcome to see everybody join us because it's a great opportunity to expand, pass it on to the next generation. So on and so forth. Yeah.
Shannon Sand:Or even if you're getting started, because I know you guys have some really good beginning farmers and ranchers programs, so
Melelani Oshiro:what's the best way for folks to get in touch? To find out you know, if they want to find out more about the loan program, you know, do they get online contact you folks office, so what's the best way for them? The
Unknown:best way to do it is contact us at our office now. Let us meet people again, that's even greater we can meet you. Or we used to meet I used to meet people in the parking lot. That was more fun, you know, because we're not supposed to be inside. Yeah. Okay. So we've got meet outside leaned up against the truck and talk shop. But yeah, that's always the best. Just give us a call our offices. And we'll be more than happy to meet with you look at you know, see what you've got, see how we can have our program fit your farm? Because this is about your farm, your ranch your operation? And how do we make it fit you? So that's what our goal is.
Shannon Sand:Kristen, can you tell us a little bit more about some of the disaster assistance programs in?
Unknown:Yeah, of course. So there's a lot of
Shannon Sand:and it depends on what happens, what triggers?
Melelani Oshiro:Sure.
Unknown:Exact Exactly, we kind of have, you know, a whole bunch of different categories of programs, if you want even call it categories, I think I'll just kind of run through it really quickly on just kind of the names. Like I mentioned earlier, we just have a lot of acronyms. So there's a lot of
Shannon Sand:confusion will ask don't worry.
Unknown:Yeah, by all means, ask anytime. I was gonna kind of go through really quickly about some of the more well known livestock programs, I think, that are kind of circulating around the islands, and then kind of go into the more unspoken ones are unheard of ones. As you guys know already, but if not clarification, that majority of all our programs on the farm program side is for disaster assistance. And these are programs designed to assist ranchers, when there's a natural weather event that, you know triggers a loss for them rather, it's lost in feed loss of an actual animal. Any type of loss rate, obviously, like buddy mentioned, COVID rate affected a lot of our farmers and ranchers. So we even have special programs to help with that. But before I get too deep into any of that, I just kind of wanted to do real surface stuff with the more popular programs. Right now what we got going on, and then kind of give some background on the program, and then some deadlines, and then just real quickly, and then we can kind of talk more deep into each of the programs. But some of the disaster program that we have is the livestock forage program or LSP. This particular program pays for graze forage losses due to drought. The triggering factor for LSP is actually the US Drought Monitor. So our program eligibility kind of goes along with that. But you know, basically, the more severe or long term the drought is, the higher the payment factor for the program is. So people can get really significant payments, the payment limitation is actually $125,000 per program year, so it's significant. Definitely, as of the end of April, only Maui and Hawaii counties are eligible for 2022 LFP. But you know, the drought is ongoing, and I think it's it's significant in Honolulu and kawaii so we're sort of expecting those counties to become eligible as well. The deadline to sign up for that program is actually January 31 of the following year. So you know, there's a there's a whole year right there's a lag there yeah, there is there is so it's not something where we have a short little you know, sign up period it's long term it doesn't end till after the actual calendar year end. So it gives, you know, producers the opportunity to come find us hopefully hear from their friends, right talk and you know, come to our offices and sign up for sure. In addition to LFP we also have the noninsured crop Disaster Assistance Program or nap nap. This program provides financial assistance to producers of non insurable crops such as grass, right, for for grazing producers, and, and it protects against natural disasters which most times for livestock, you know, it'll be drought conditions, right because most times, you know, the grass can recover from other disaster conditions. So Just allergy of excessive rain or something like that. But for the most part it's usually drought and all that we're making payments for for nap as well. But it could be other weather events as well. You know, hurricanes, typhoons any
Shannon Sand:strictly weather events as far as disasters or would that include other things? Okay.
Unknown:Yeah. So for for those two programs, it's strictly so for LFPS, straight drought, nothing else. And then for nap, it's any natural weather event. So it has to be a weather event. It cannot be something. It's supposed to be just for weather events, wetter weather. Yep. Correct. Correct. And, you know, for the net program is basically crop insurance for crops that aren't commercially insurable. Right. So for us locally, as far as the livestock group, it'll just be the grazing forage, right? The grass itself is what you're covering. The producers who are eligible are interested in signing up for NAB, the deadline is December 31. Of every year for the following year. Right. So for 2023, you'd have to sign up by December 31st 2022. This year, right? Correct. Correct. So you have to sign up the year before, just like any other insurance, right? You gotta sign up before you actually
Shannon Sand:need insurance before you need insurance.
Unknown:Exactly. Yes, yes, totally. Exactly. Exactly. In addition to those two bigger programs, I think a lot of people have already heard about those or you know, word is out about those too. We have other smaller programs too designed to help for other issues, right. The Livestock Indemnity Program or lip provides benefits to eligible livestock owners for livestock deaths. So the death of the actual, you know, livestock, that one again, has to be due to an eligible weather event or an eligible disease. So I don't think it's normally like kind of works together, right? You have a weather event, and then it causes the disease right in the animal, and then the animal die. So it kind of all ties back to the whole adverse weather event thing. That program is ongoing all year round. Yeah, every year, producers just have to come to an FSA office within 30 days from the death becoming apparent. Yeah, and, you know, provide us with a notice of loss and let us know, hey, I had this death. And it was I think it was due to this right. In addition to that, we have the emergency assistance for livestock honeybee and farm raised fish program, or ILA downs kind of unique in that it provides assistance for losses resulting from things like additional costs for transporting water to livestock due to drought. So if you got you know, if if producers have drought in their area, and they had to haul, you know, 10 times the amount of water they usually had to hold, that's something that you know, could be covered under e lap, and we provide financial assistance there. Elap also covers things like cost of transporting feed, or the actual livestock to the feed, due to drought again, so again, it's another, you know, program related to a weather condition. And in this case, drought, right. And same thing with lip, you know, the producers all year round, their programs open, the producer just is required to notify FSA within 30 days, when a loss is apparent. And then they can come to office fill out an application. And you know, we take it from there. Um, in addition to those programs, we have other programs that aren't related to disasters that livestock producers can take advantage of. Yeah, we have the reimbursement transportation cost program or our TC T. That one there is a special program that was created by, you know, years ago, probably in 2009, or 10. It's a special program for all the kind of insular areas, right, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the areas that aren't connected to the continental United States. And what that program is designed to do is pay for a small percentage of transportation costs that producers incur to either ship their cattle or livestock out right to the mainland, or for actual farm input costs. So you know, things that we buy here on the Big Island from Home Depot might cost you know, $2 more than something that you would have bought in California, right. So that's kind of the program is designed to kind of pay back some other producers for the extra cost they have just because we live on an island and we cannot easily get all of these things. But the the sign up for this program is usually July through September of each year. I don't know the specific dates for this particular year yet, but, um, it's usually July through September. So I'd encourage anybody who's interested in that to just, you know, keep in contact with FSA office, you know, we're here to help. And you know, just check in, you know, call and check in and say, Hey, what do you guys got going on? We try to do a lot of GOV Delivery, email bulletins for all our programs. So, you know, if you're just interested in what we do, or programs we have, you can call the office and say, Hey, can you sign me up for that? Right? And then you can get all of our newsletters and all of that stuff? Yeah, so in addition to that, we also have so many special programs, right, so but he kind of touched on COVID. And you know, how that kind of impacted a bunch of our farmers and ranchers if not all of them. So, you know, Congress kind of enact some of these special programs. And specifically, we had a bunch of pandemic related programs, I won't get too much into detail with those, because a lot of those have already kind of passed, right. But with that, that whole pandemic package of programs we had recently within the last month or two, a rollout of a program to pay for 2021 losses, due to drought for livestock producers. So that's something that you know, might continue to move forward. And that programs called the emergency livestock relief program or El RP. Yeah. And then I think I also wanted to mention, I know that's already a lot of information. I also wanted to mention, you know, here at FSA, it's not only about, you know, disaster related programs and acting after you know, something happens. We do have conservation programs, too. We don't have quite as big of slew of programs as NRCS does, but we have a few. So I kind of just wanted to touch on those.
Melelani Oshiro:Yeah, good. Yeah. Yeah. Okay,
Unknown:cool. So we have the Emergency Conservation Program are ECP that provides emergency funding and technical assistance to producers to rehab, their farmland and conservation structures damaged by natural disasters. So again, you know, has to be a weather event, right, that triggered, you know, some kind of something to happen, your fence got damaged, right, I think most recently, we use the ECP program to pay for a fence replacement due to the kukaku fire wildfire, on the Big Island. So we do like fence replacement, or like if your your water tank got burned, you know, in a wildfire, it could also be flood, right? Flood, a flood came in, washed your fence out, you know, things like that damage your pipeline for your, your, your trough, you know, all those types of things. So actually, like replacing what was there, we don't necessarily install brand new things, because that's kind of more you know, NRCS is house. But for our ECP program, we kind of just will pay to replace what was there as far as infrastructure? And, and yeah, I think it's a really good program that people kind of forget that we also do conservation, but that program to it, you know, there has to be a weather event first, and then you know, the program gets triggered. It's not necessarily open all the time, right. And then the last program I kind of wanted to touch on is grassland, CRP, or Conservation Reserve Program. And what that program is, is it's a voluntary program, which producers can sign a contract for 10 to 15 years. So it's kind of a long term program, right? It's designed to help landowners and operators protect grasslands while maintaining the area's grazing land. So basically, it's like you sign a contract to say, I'm gonna keep my land in range land or grassland, for this 10 to 15 years. And in return, you still get to graze the area, right? So you have to develop a conservation plan and a grazing management plan. But you know, we pay you like a yearly rental rate fee. So we're paying you basically to just graze your land and follow your contribution plan. So it's a really good program out there. And I think, you know, we're trying on our end to really try to get that program out there to our local ranchers so that they know that it's available, right. Kind of the downside about it is it's a nationally ranked program. So any of our local Hawaii offers, you know, there they have to get thrown in the big pool with the other the rest of the nation. Um, So it's competitive nationwide. But, you know, I, it's not to say you cannot put in an offer, you know, definitely come see us put in an offer. And then we'll go from there, right, and hopefully the signup, the signup number or the cutoff number is low enough that everybody in Hawaii gets a contract, I think we have only a few statewide. So not too popular, but I think we're trying to ramp that up and get people excited about it. There's actually a current signup going on now, which ends May 13, of 2022. So we're hopeful that we'll get a few good offers, and we'll get some contracts out of that. Um, those are kind of the programs and I know, you guys had asked to, for us to kind of go into some of the eligibility requirements or like, how can producers become eligible or come, you know, to our, to participate in our programs, and I kind of wanted to just go real briefly, you know, obviously, all the programs have different eligibility requirements. So, you know, some of them are more significant than others. For the most part, a lot of our programs, producers will need to certify that their adjusted gross income is less than 900,000. But I don't know about you guys, I don't
Shannon Sand:see an issue.
Unknown:Exactly, exactly. That's the I don't even have to think about that. That's an easy qualification. In addition to that, you know, producers will need to provide their land documentation, right. So we have to be able to see your lease or your deed, to show that you actually have control of the property, right? We don't want people coming in and saying, Well, that's my cause that's, you know, your, you know, your neighbor or your friends. So we actually do require producers to to provide their land documentation to us. So we can show who has control of the land. And then of course, you know, with majority of the ranching programs, we require an acreage report. So with the acreage report every year, the producers coming into the office and just reporting their acreage, so they'll just say, Okay, I had kikuyu grass, 102 acres, or I had guinea grass, you know, 52 acres. And so it just kind of helps us keep track because a lot of our programs are based off of acreage, right, based off of the grass acreage, how much grass did you have? Or how much did you lose. So those are kind of the really important things, the two really important things is the land documentation, and then also the acreage report each year. You know, and then of course, like any other federal agency, we're going to need your personal information, right? Name, address, contact information, social security, or EIN number, but that's pretty much the gist. So it's, it's not that difficult to actually come in and be eligible for our programs. And once you're established with us, a lot of the forms, you don't have to do it every year, right, it's kind of continuous. So there's a few forms you have to do every year, but for the most part, there's a whole lot of the forms that just kind of continue on, so you'll never have to fill it out again. So we're trying, as an agency to meet make it less tedious on producers to come sign up. You know, we want everybody to come come talk story, come to our office, you know, ask questions. We're here to help. And, you know, I just wanted to echo what buddy said is, you know, we're here to help. So just please come to us, you know, we want people to come we're looking for people to come, we want to help. And you know, I guess they just encourage everybody to just, you know, look up where your local offices, because we have offices on every main Hawaiian island. So they're, you know, COVID we were closed, but we're slowly, you know, trying to get back open and, you know, be open to the public and people can walk in and do business as usual. I think, you know, most businesses are kind of trying to get to that point. But, um, yeah, I think it's, you know, awesome.
Shannon Sand:It sounds like with the disaster programs, it's kind of a, like, I feel like with all any sort of, like, financial related thing, like you have to give them all the information, but it sounds like once you guys have that, at least like subsequent years, or like, if it's triggered again, it's gonna be a lot easier to just go in and like, be like, yes, sign your name and kind of, yeah, correct what you need to do. Yeah,
Unknown:definitely. So yeah, we're trying you know, our best I mean, obviously, just like anything else that you know, you'd sign up for, there's paperwork involved. Yeah,
Shannon Sand:I'm not gonna say there's no paper Yeah, but that's I was thinking I was like, so the paperwork in the beginning is probably more than anything else going on, but after Yeah, done, you're done. Yes, tell yourself that that's what I always have to tell myself getting started is half the battle. But once you're done, it's easy to follow up and keep it going. You know,
Unknown:it is it is I understand, you know, there's, there's that kind of stigma that people might have with federal government or, you know, filling out paperwork for the federal government thinking that, you know, you have hundreds of pages, you know, to fill out and, and on the program side, you know, maybe there's only 10 or less, sometimes, right, depends what program you're working with, a lot of it is redundant, right? Not your name, address, social, like multiple times, on every form. It's kind of redundant, a lot of the paperwork, but you know, it's just what, what's required. And, you know, we try to do our best in all of our offices to provide assistance to producers, being able to interpret the forms, what it means how to fill it out, right? We don't expect our producers to come in here in any of our offices and expect them to know exactly what the form is asking them to do. Right. So, you know, our job is to also try to explain to the producer, this is what it means. This is how you fill it out. Things like that. And, you know, I think it's it's been challenging, you know, getting to that point. But we're, we're here to help. And I think that's the main point is that we want everybody to come see us and see, you know, you may not be eligible for all our programs, but hopefully, some, and you know, going forward, we'll put you on the newsletter, we'll you know, inform you of all the new stuff coming out, we always constantly have program changes, rather, its eligibility requirements change, or new programs coming out, you know, lots of changes all the time. So there's just new stuff all the time. Most of our programs, we have payment limitations that vary from 125,000, up to 500,000. So with, like, ECP, the fence repair program that I was talking about, that payment limitation is actually 500,000. So you could get a significant Senate significant amount of money, just from applying. Yeah, and help. Yeah, so I think, you know, we've gotten really good feedback on a lot of our programs. And you know, buddy, kind of mentioned that is, you know, we're here to keep the farmers and the ranchers afloat when there are, you know, disasters that happen. And just for people to know that we're here, right, and get our name out there. That's the goal for buddy and I. But thank you guys, for having us again today.
Melelani Oshiro:Thank ya know, thank you guys for being here. Because I think there are folks out there that still don't know what FSA is, or the programs that you guys offer, you know, and the variety of programs that you offer, a lot of folks just kind of think, Oh, it's just loans and stuff and don't realize that there's some other programs in there to help you when there's disasters and situations with drought and whatnot. So it's great. It's good. You know, now they can get more information from the podcast and listen to it.
Unknown:Definitely, definitely. And I think, if you're looking for somewhere to start either, you know, you can just Google FSA and I'm sure you know, you'll find where your nearest offices. But in addition to that, we have a website farmers.gov, which kind of gives a lot of information on a lot of different USDA agencies, right? It's not just FSA, but also NRCS. And you know, some of the other ones are man stuff. So you can start there. And like, Shannon kind of mentioned about the beginning farmer thing. There's also a page in there about Beginning Farmer and Rancher information, you know, how to start your business, how to start your farm, right? So it's just a good resource, and a good place to start. Is that farmers.gov website? And then of course, you know, like I said, I think if you just did a Google search, if they were to find our web page, or something where you can get more information on our programs, and get some of the fact sheets, the fact sheets kind of go into more detail payment rates, you know, things like that, that we kind of didn't touch on today. But um, yeah,
Melelani Oshiro:yeah. And we will include all the links to the FS two year programs and the offices and everything in the show notes from the podcast, as well as the YouTube page. So they should be able to get connected and if not reach out to Shannon and I and we will put you in connection with get you connected with everybody needs to be so. Well, thank you guys so much for joining today. Christina and Buddy, do you guys have anything else you want to share your thoughts? I mean, I think it's very important that these programs are out there to help our farmers or ranchers and whatnot continue and, you know, continue to be able to be successful out there. And you know, when you have a disaster, it can be very discouraging, sometimes so it's nice to know that there's programs out there to kind of help them get over those types of situations. So
Unknown:there's also programs is Christian and mentioned there's programs and different different things you can do as you're changing your farm as well. So it may not be disaster related, but it may be changing from fruits to vegetables, to livestock to this to that, whatever. So there are other things out there, like there's assistance to going organic. There's, there's other things that are out there besides just disaster related. The problem is, there's a big number of them. So just keep asking questions, and you'll keep getting answers. So that's the best way to get there. The other thing is to is track your production. Always know what you were produced. That way when you come in, and there's been a disaster, you know, where you stand, because you're a farmer than the average, and you have an opportunity to get back to where you were before. That's true for farm loan for any of our programs, anything at all, just know what your production is. That's really the only number you have to track. And as a farmer, that's what we all know, anyway, we know exactly what our crops do. Our problem has always been, we just never write it down. So write it down, throw it on the
Shannon Sand:calendar, or whatever
Unknown:calendar, throw it on the dashboard of your pickup. That's it. And just load them up and bring them in and we'll see if we can help you out with that. So
Shannon Sand:whether it's your number of head or number of hives is your one because why Yeah, does include is a thing. It's it's a lot broader than a lot of people think so I was like, Yeah, especially here. I was like, we just have so many different types. So yeah,
Unknown:yeah, that's a good point, buddy. Thanks for bringing that up. Definitely record keeping, you know, even on the livestock side, keeping track of how much head you have a lot of our programs, that's the kind of information we'll be asking for is like, Okay, well, what was your your headcount on this day, right? Or the day before the disaster? What was your headcount or what's your headcount the day after? So that's a really good point to keep good records. You know, I think like buddy said, a lot of everybody, you know, all the ranchers, they know how much they have in their head, but don't necessarily write it down on paper. So that's a good reminder as well. And what Shannon said as well, you know, livestock does encompass bees, too.
Shannon Sand:So lots and lots and lots and aquaculture of all the things many.
Unknown:So we have we have programs for honeybees. And you know, find me fish aquaculture stuff. You know, we're here. Just yeah, just ask, just ask.
Melelani Oshiro:Yeah. Well, that's awesome. Thank you guys so much, again, for joining us today. We very hope our listeners have found this information, very opening for them and able to check out some of the opportunities you know, and like Kristin said, reach out or buddy, reach out to them in the office, ask the questions. We don't ask the questions, you won't get the answers, right. So also, and we also want to remind our listeners out there if you haven't done so already, please fill out our feedback fest to shut in and I give us your thoughts about the podcast and any other topics that you've heard guests that were on and anything else you'd like to hear more of.
Shannon Sand:Yes, and make sure to join our Facebook page, the livestock extension group. If you haven't already, be sure to visit the U H. CTAHR. website and our YouTube channel listed in the show notes.
Melelani Oshiro:Yes, right additional information about this topic, see the show notes of the podcast the description box of our YouTube page. And thanks again for listening to the livestock bow before we go show some love for your favorite podcast. That's us by the way, leaving us a review on Apple podcasts and students. Stay tuned next for next month's episode.
Shannon Sand:Thanks again to our sponsors, the Western extension Risk Management Education Center, USDA NIFA, the livestock extension group and CTAHR see you next time on we have
Melelani Oshiro:Marlo on we hope