Report your Freeze Damage Losses

It is important to report any freeze damages you have to our local USDA Farm Service Agency offices.  This will help determine disaster levels and possible policy changes to assist ag producers.  Our Hillsborough County office is:  

HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY FARM SERVICE AGENCY

201 S COLLINS ST STE 201

PLANT CITY, FL 33563

(813) 752-1474 ext 2

Polk County office is:

POLK COUNTY FARM SERVICE AGENCY

1700 HWY 17 S

BARTOW, FL 33830

863) 533-2051 ext 2 UF is also assisting with damage reporting to measure the impact to help inform decision makers.  This is what was sent by Dr. Christa Court Ag Economist with UF/IFAS...  My program supports the State Emergency Board for Florida by attending their meetings to share the information that my program has on the weather event, the affected agricultural acreage, and results that are coming in through the UF/IFAS Agricultural Damage and Loss Assessment. So, they will have this information available to inform the overall process, but it cannot be used to determine county/state eligibility for the Secretarial disaster designation. My information is typically used to determine if there are additional counties or crops that did not have individual reports coming into a county/region USDA-FSA office that might make the county eligible for a Secretarial disaster designation, which means an area or commodity should be investigated further before a final decision is made. This (and other uses in meetings with and decisions being made by the Office of the Governor, the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, the USDA, and others) is why I always describe the UF/IFAS assessment as complementary to reporting losses and damages to USDA-FSA, even though the two efforts are asking for much of the same information. I have been trying for 8+ years to overcome duplicate efforts and barriers to data sharing across organizations and we have made great strides, but aren't yet to the ultimate goal of having agricultural operations only have to report this information once. It has been a rough couple of weeks weather wise and I hope you made it through without too much loss. Just make sure to be proactive and report your losses or call Shawn at the Extension Office and I can work with you to report your losses.