IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER:

• AUGUST 12, 2026- SDRP - Supplemental Disaster Relief Program – Stage 1 and Stage 2 – application. NEW DATE – PROGRAM HAS BEEN EXTENDED
• July 15, 2026 - Spring acreage reporting deadline. Visit Farmers.gov for more information regarding deadlines and programs available through FSA and NRCS.
• CRP PRIMARY NESTING SEASON – March 15 – July 15. No grazing or contract management activities authorized. Grassland CRP contracts are exempt.

DROUGHT MONITOR

The D2 severe drought designation took over much more of southeast Colorado this past week on the drought monitor.

There seems to be more red showing up week after week.  Hoping that this week brings some much needed moisture to the area.

FSA PROGRAM ANALYST POSITIONS AVAILABLE

The Prowers County and Baca County Farm Service Agency each have a full-time permanent Program Analyst position open. Annual salary ranges from $36,464-$80,243 (CO-03 through CO-09) depending on the qualifications of the applicant. This position is located at the Prowers County FSA Office, 1501 S Main Street, Lamar, CO and at Baca County FSA Office, 27200 Hwy 287, Springfield, CO.

Apply online at www.usajobs.gov Job Announcement: FSACO-12946731-26-CO-AG and FSACO-12946759-26-CO-AG beginning April 27, 2026 through May 11, 2026. The entire announcement and all instructions can be found online.

For questions, please call Prowers County FSA Office at 719-336-3437 or Baca County FSA Office at 719-523-6251 .

FSA is an equal opportunity provider, employer and lender.

USDA BASE ACRE UPDATES

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), enacted on July 4, 2025, allows FSA to allocate an additional 30 million base acres.

To implement the additional base acres, cropping history will be used from crop year 2019 through 2023. There are farms that have been identified as having subsequent acres in one or more those years. Subsequent acres are acres that are planted after a crop fails, in Kiowa County, the majority of the subsequent acres are grain sorghum after a failed wheat crop. FSA can only count one of the commodities for history purposes and it will be the decision of the owner(s) to designate which commodity. 

It’s important to remember that this is not a reallocation of existing base acres, like FSA has done in the past. This is the addition of 30 million base acres to eligible farms across the nation. If the 30 million is exceeded, then a proration of acres will occur.

Kiowa County will be sending out information to owners later this week for them to contact the office.  If the owner would rather have the operator on the land to complete this task, the owner will need to contact the operator to do so. The operator will need to have signature authority for the landowner.