With droughts affecting farmers across Tennessee due to the state experiencing below average rainfall this year, Congressman Bart Gordon announced today that the U.S. Agriculture Department declared Cannon County a federal agricultural disaster area.
“This drought has destroyed crop yields across Cannon – it has hurt farmers and their families in the County and throughout the rest of the state,” Congressman Gordon said. “With this declaration, the many affected farmers can begin to rebuild and prepare for the start of the next farming season.”
The U.S. Agriculture Department’s disaster declaration enables qualifying farmers to apply for federal farm disaster assistance programs, including supplemental farm revenue payments, livestock assistance and low-interest emergency loans.
“This federal assistance will not only help the countless farmers and their businesses that have been affected by the drought,” Gordon added, “but it will also help the local county economies.”
Cannon County is one of 39 drought-affected counties that received the federal agricultural disaster declaration today. The declaration comes after Gordon and seven of his Tennessee colleagues requested on September 23rd and on October 10th that U.S. Agriculture Secretary, Edward Schafer, grant federal disaster assistance to Cannon and 38 other drought-affected Tennessee counties.