Work resumes on farm payments

County Farm Service Agency are back on the job with the end of the federal shutdown, although its effects still continue, delaying farm program payments to local producers, payments that were more than $15 million last year.

Hill County FSA Executive Director Les Rispens said the office staff was back in the U.S. Department of Agriculture Service Center Thursday, the day after a last-minute deal to resume federal operations and raise the federal debt limit.

He added that it may be another day or two until the computers are fully up and running again.

USDA is moving forward with processing Conservation Reserve Program and Direct and Countercyclical Program payments.

Rispens said, normally, CRP payments would be close to complete and DCP would be about 40 percent dispersed, with both usually completed by the end of October.

He said last year, his office dispersed about $7,930,525 in CRP and $7,196,120 in DCP.

The DCP payments will be lower this year as a result of sequestration, although Rispens said the exact amount is not yet known.

He said on the national level FSA will work through the weekend on the CRP payments, then it will take the local office about 10 days to two weeks to process most of them.

The DCP payment process is planned to run through the weekend of Oct. 26. It will then take his office about two weeks to process those payments Rispens said.