The USDA is providing an initial allocation of about $1.4 million in Emergency Conservation Program (ECP) funding to Pennsylvania. Some of this money will go toward Butler County.

The funding was provided for by the 2005 Emergency Hurricane Supplemental Appropriations Act, signed by President Bush on Oct. 13. Under that plan, $150 million is authorized for ECP use.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said that the announcement "marks the first program rollout under disaster legislation that provides more than $3 billion in relief to farmers, ranchers, foresters and agriculture-related businesses that suffered due to severe weather."

The program is administered by the USDA's state and county Farm Service Agencies (FSA). Locally elected committees are authorized to implement ECP for all disasters except drought, which is authorized at the national office.

Butler County will share the $1.4 million with 38 other counties. The funds will be allocated based on estimates of damages submitted earlier by the local FSA offices.

ECP provides financial and technical assistance to help producers remove debris from farmland, restore fences and conservation structures, and grade and shape farmland damaged by a natural disaster.

Eligible producers may receive cost-share assistance up to 75 percent approved practice cost, as determined by FSA's county committees.

The ECP sign-up period began Sept. 30 and runs through Nov. 30. For a producer's land to be eligible, the disaster must create new conservation problems that, if untreated, would impair or endanger the land and affect its productive capacity. Conservation problems existing prior to the applicable disaster are ineligible for ECP assistance.

USDA offers additional programs to help farmers and ranchers recover from damages caused by natural disasters. These programs include the Emergency Loan Program, Federal Crop Insurance, and the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program.

For more information on ECP and other disaster assistance programs, visit the Butler County FSA office at 625 Evans City Road, Suite 103, call 724-482-4800, Ext. 2; 724-775-2369, Ext. 2; or online at www.disaster.fsa.usda.gov.