USDA has Designated Counties in Alabama as natural disaster areas. 
 AL Report (:52 wma)
FL Report   (:55 wma)        GA Report  (1:00 wma)
WASHINGTON, July 3, 2006 – The U.S. Department of
Agriculture designated 48 Alabama counties as primary natural disaster areas, making all qualified farm
operators in the designated areas eligible for low-
interest emergency (EM) loans from USDA’s Farm Service
Agency (FSA). A total of 48 Alabama counties were designated primary disaster areas due to losses caused by drought and high temperatures that occurred from Jan. 1, 2006, and continuing. Those counties are:
Baldwin Coffee Etowah Lee Barbour Colbert Franklin Macon
Bibb Conecuh Geneva Madison Bullock Coosa Greene Marengo Butler Covington Hale Mobile Chambers Crenshaw Henry Monroe Cherokee Cullman Houston Montgomery
Choctaw Dale Jackson Morgan Clarke Elmore Lauderdale Perry Clay Escambia Lawrence Pike Randolph Russell St. Clair
Sumter Tallapoosa Tuscaloosa Washington Wilcox
    The following Alabama counties are also eligible because they are contiguous:
Autauga Cleburne Jefferson Marshall Blount Dallas Limestone Pickens Calhoun De Kalb Lowndes Shelby Chilton Fayette Marion Talladega Walker Winston
  The following counties in Florida, Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee are also eligible because they are contiguous:
Florida:
Escambia Holmes Jackson Okaloosa Santa Rosa Walton
Georgia:
Carroll Clay Floyd Muscogee Chattahoochee Dade Harris Polk
Chattooga Early Heard Quitman Seminole Stewart Troup
Mississippi:
Clarke Greene Jackson Lauderdale George Itawamba Kemper Noxubee Tishomingo Wayne
Tennessee:
Franklin Hardin Lincoln Wayne Giles Lawrence Marion
    All counties listed above were designated natural
disaster areas on June 30, 2006, making all qualified farm
operators in the designated areas eligible for EM loans,
provided eligibility requirements are met. Farmers in
eligible counties have eight months from the date of the
declaration to apply for loans to help cover part of their
actual losses. FSA will consider each loan application on
its own merits, taking into account the extent of losses,
security available and repayment ability. FSA has a
variety of programs, in addition to the emergency loan
program, to help eligible farmers recover from adversity.
    USDA has also made other programs available to assist
farmers and ranchers, including the Emergency Conservation
Program, Federal Crop Insurance and the Noninsured Crop
Disaster Assistance Program.
    Interested farmers may contact their local USDA
Service Centers for further information on eligibility
requirements and application procedures for these and
other programs. Additional information is also available
online at: http://disaster.fsa.usda.gov.