{"id":126275,"date":"2017-08-03T07:55:50","date_gmt":"2017-08-03T12:55:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/?p=126275"},"modified":"2017-08-03T08:23:01","modified_gmt":"2017-08-03T13:23:01","slug":"farmers-union-calling-for-fed-disaster-payments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/?p=126275","title":{"rendered":"Farmers Union calls for federal disaster payments"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_126198\" style=\"width: 229px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-126198\" class=\"size-full wp-image-126198\" src=\"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/WatneMark.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"219\" height=\"250\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-126198\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mark Watne<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Jamestown\u00a0 (CSi- NDFU) \u2013 The state\u2019s largest farm organization is calling for federal disaster payments to assist livestock and crop producers through one of the worst droughts in North Dakota since the 1980s.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere have been great efforts to get hay and forage into the hands of ranchers, but that won\u2019t fix the financial disaster that is looming,\u201d said North Dakota Farmers Union President Mark Watne. \u201cThe federal government needs to step up.\u201d Farmers Union is proposing direct payments to both livestock and crop producers affected by the drought.<\/p>\n<p>In a letter sent last week to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and the heads of the U.S. Senate and House Agriculture Committees, Farmers Union extended an invitation for them to see drought conditions firsthand in North Dakota. As of the end of July, 51 of the state\u2019s 53 counties were in some form of drought with 15 counties incurring exceptional drought, the most intensive classification of the U.S. Drought Monitor. \u201cCrop insurance is an excellent tool for farmers [to combat disaster],\u201d stated Watne, \u201cbut when the disaster is this severe, it will not meet our needs.<\/p>\n<p>Producers are limited in what they can recover through crop insurance and there is no insurance program for livestock producers.\u201d The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts less rainfall in North Dakota in August than the limited amount received in July. \u201cIf predictions hold true, crops that haven\u2019t failed already will do so in August,\u201d Watne said, \u201cand our feed shortage will only get worse. It\u2019s important that federal and congressional leaders come to North Dakota to grasp what conditions are really like on the ground, so they better understanding the critical needs.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jamestown\u00a0 (CSi- NDFU) \u2013 The state\u2019s largest farm organization is calling for federal disaster payments to assist livestock and crop producers through one of the worst droughts in North Dakota since the 1980s. \u201cThere have been great efforts to get hay and forage into the hands of ranchers, but that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":33006,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-126275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=126275"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126279,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126275\/revisions\/126279"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=126275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=126275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=126275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}