March 31, 2023 Update
On March 31 Custer County was added as a primary county. Please see the March 31 news release shared below.
March 17, 2023
The State of Colorado received a letter from USDA Secretary Thoams J. Vilksack for the following natural disaster declaration:
In accordance with 7 CFR 759.5(a), I am designating 23 Colorado counties as primary natural disaster areas due to a recent drought.
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor (see http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/), these counties suffered from a drought intensity value during the growing season of 1) D2 Drought-Severe for 8 or more consecutive weeks or 2) D3 Drought-Extreme or D4 Drought-Exceptional.
In accordance with section 321(a) of the Consolidated Farm and Rural Development Act, additional areas of your state and adjacent states are named as contiguous disaster counties. Enclosed you will find documentation that provides a detailed list of all primary and contiguous counties impacted by this disaster.
A Secretarial disaster designation makes farm operators in primary counties and those counties contiguous to such primary counties eligible to be considered for certain assistance from the Farm Service Agency (FSA), provided eligibility requirements are met. This assistance includes FSA emergency loans. Farmers in eligible counties have 8 months from the date of a Secretarial disaster declaration to apply for emergency loans. FSA considers each emergency loan application on its own merits, taking into account the extent of production losses on the farm and the security and repayment ability of the operator.
Local FSA offices can provide affected farmers with further information.
Disaster Designation Areas for Colorado
Primary Counties
- Adams
- Arapahoe
- Baca
- Bent
- Cheyenne
- Crowley
- Custer
- Elbert
- El Paso
- Fremont
- Kiowa
- Kit Carson
- Las Animas
- Lincoln
- Logan
- Morgan
- Otero
- Phillips
- Prowers
- Pueblo
- Sedgwick
- Washington
- Weld
- Yuma
Contiguous Counties
- Boulder
- Broomfield
- Chaffee
- Costilla
- Custer
- Denver
- Douglas
- Huerfano
- Jefferson
- Larimer
- Park
- Saguache
- Teller