Programs

Program Contacts

State Outreach Coordinator

Brooke Rafaele

Farm Loans

Production Flexibility/Compliance

Public Affairs Officer

Brooke Raffaele

For Important Dates click here

Programs Administered in California

Agricultural Mediation Program

Helps agricultural producers, their lenders, and other persons directly affected by the actions of USDA resolve disputes. Through mediation, a trained, impartial person (mediator) helps participants review their conflicts, identify options, and agree on solutions. Mediation is a valuable tool for settling disputes in many different USDA program areas. These include farm loans, farm and conservation programs, wetland determinations, rural water loan programs, grazing on national forest system lands, and pesticides usage

Beginning Farmer Downpayment Loan

A type of Farm Ownership loan made to eligible applicants to finance a portion of a real estate purchase.
For more information click here

Conservation Reserve Program (CRP)

Provides a voluntary program to agricultural producers to help them safeguard environmentally sensitive land. Producers enrolled in CRP plant long-term, resource-conserving covers to improve the quality of water, control soil erosion, and enhance wildlife habitat. In return, CCC provides participants rental payments and cost-share assistance. Contract duration is between 10 and 15 years.

Dairy Indemnity Payment Program

Makes payments to dairy producers when a public regulatory agency directs them to remove their raw milk from the commercial market because it has been contaminated by pesticides, nuclear radiation or fallout, or toxic substances and chemical residues other than pesticides. Payments are made to manufacturers of dairy products only for products removed from the market because of pesticide contamination.

Direct Farm Ownership Loan

A loan made to eligible applicants to purchase, enlarge, or make capital improvements to family farms, or to promote soil and water conservation and protection. Maximum direct loan amount is $300,000. A percentage of direct Farm Ownership loan funds are targeted for beginning farmers and socially disadvantaged applicants.
For more information click here

Direct Operating Loan

A loan made to an eligible applicant to assist with the financial costs of operating a farm. Maximum direct loan amount is $300,000. A percentage of direct Operating Loan funds is targeted for beginning farmers.
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Economic Emergency Loan Program

Provided loans to farmers and ranchers who were unable to obtain credit from their normal agricultural lender(s) due to national or area-wide economic stresses such as general tightening of agricultural credit or an unfavorable relationship between production costs and prices received for agricultural commodities
For more information click here

Emergency Conservation Program (ECP)

Provides emergency funding for farmers and ranchers to rehabilitate farmland damaged by wind erosion, floods, hurricanes, or other natural disasters, and for carrying out emergency water conservation measures during periods of severe drought. The natural disaster must create new conservation problems, which, if not treated, would: impair or endanger the land; materially affect the productive capacity of the land; represent unusual damage which, except for wind erosion, is not the type likely to recur frequently in the same area; and be so costly to repair that Federal assistance is, or will be, required to return the land to productive agricultural use.

Emergency Loans

Loans are available to eligible applicants who have incurred qualifying production or physical losses from a disaster. Maximum outstanding loan amount is $500,000
For more information click here

Extra Long Staple Cotton Competitiveness Program

Producers may receive marketing assistance loans on all ELS cotton production. For ELS cotton to be eligible for a marketing assistance loan, producers must comply with applicable conservation and wetland requirements, report their ELS cotton planted acreage, comply with crop insurance requirements, and have beneficial interest in the cotton at the time the loan is requested and throughout the loan period. Further, cotton must be ginned on a roller-type gin, carry an approved USDA Agricultural Marketing Service class, and be placed in a CCC-approved warehouse. Cotton placed under a marketing assistance loan may be forfeited to CCC when the loan expires in full satisfaction of the loan.

Farm Storage Facility Loan Program

USDA may make loans to producers to build or upgrade farm storage and handling facilities. Commodities covered under this storage program are rice, soybeans, dry peas, lentils, small chickpeas, peanuts, sunflower seeds, canola, rapeseed, safflower, flaxseed, mustard seed, and other oilseeds as CCC determines and announces. Corn, grain sorghum, oats, wheat, or barley harvested as whole grain or other than whole grain are also eligible.
For more information click here.

Grassland Reserve Program (GRP)

GRP is voluntary, and it offers landowners the opportunity to protect, restore, and enhance grasslands on their property The program will conserve vulnerable grasslands from conversion to cropland or other uses and conserve valuable grasslands by helping maintain viable ranching operations.

Guaranteed Farm Ownership Loan

A loan made by another lender and guaranteed by FSA to eligible applicants to purchase, enlarge, or make capital improvements to family farms, or to promote soil and water conservation and protection. Maximum loan amount is $782,000 (for FY 2004). A percentage of guaranteed Farm Ownership loan funds is targeted for beginning farmers.

Guaranteed Operating Loan

A loan made by another lender and guaranteed by FSA to an eligible applicant to assist with the financial costs of operating a farm. Maximum loan amount is $782,000 (for FY 2004). A percentage of guaranteed Operating Loan funds is targeted for beginning.
For more information click here.

Indian Tribal Land Acquisition Program

A loan available to Indian tribes for purchasing privately held lands within their respective reservations’ boundaries

Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP)

Provides financial assistance to eligible producers affected by drought, flood, hurricane, or other natural disasters. This federally funded program covers noninsurable crop losses and planting prevented by disasters. Producers who are landowners, tenants, or sharecroppers who share in the risk of producing an eligible crop are eligible. Eligible crops include commercial crops and other agricultural commodities produced for food (including livestock feed) or fiber for which the catastrophic level of crop insurance is unavailable. Also eligible for NAP coverage are controlled-environment crops (mushrooms and floriculture), specialty crops (honey and maple sap), and value loss crops (aquaculture, Christmas trees, ginseng, ornamental nursery, and turfgrass sod).
For NAP Factsheet click here.

Nonrecourse Marketing Assistance Loan and Loan Deficiency Payment (LDP) Programs

Provide producers interim financing at harvest time to meet cash flow needs without having to sell their commodities when market prices are typically at harvest-time lows. Allowing producers to store production at harvest facilitates more orderly marketing of commodities throughout the year. Marketing assistance loans for covered commodities are nonrecourse because the commodities are pledged as loan collateral and producers have the option of delivering the pledged collateral to CCC as full payment for the loan at maturity.

A producer who is eligible to obtain a loan, but who agrees to forgo the loan, may obtain an LDP. The LDP rate equals the amount by which the applicable loan rate where the commodity is stored exceeds the alternative loan
repayment rate for the respective commodity. For more information click here.

Sugar Storage Facility Loan Program

Provides loans to processors of domestically-produced sugarcane and sugar beets for the construction or upgrading of storage and handling facilities for raw sugars and refined sugars. Loans may be made only for the purchase and installation of eligible storage facilities, permanently affixed handling equipment, or the remodeling of existing facilities.
For more information click here.

Youth Loan

Provides operating type loans to eligible rural youth applicants to finance a modest income-producing agricultural project. Maximum loan amount is $5,000.
For more information click here.

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