Earlier this summer, Montezuma County was one of six in Southwest Colorado designated a “primary natural disaster area for drought.”
The designation came from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency. It named Dolores, La Plata, San Juan, Archuleta and San Miguel counties, too.
Zooming out, “34 counties in Colorado have been declared primary natural disaster areas for drought,” a USDA spokesperson told The Journal.
That means producers in those counties can apply for emergency farm loans.
Such loans can be used for a variety of things, like replacing or restoring “essential property,” paying “production costs associated with the disaster year … (or for) essential family living expenses,” a USDA spokesperson said.
The money can also be used to “reorganize the family farming operation and refinance certain non-real estate operating debts,” they said.
Really, “the aim is to help producers recover swiftly and maintain the viability of their operations during and after disaster recovery,” the Farm Service Agency’s website reads.
To qualify, applicants “must prove actual production or physical losses” and “demonstrate an inability to obtain sufficient credit from other sources to cover their disaster-related need.”
“Repayment terms vary,” the website reads, depending on what the money is used for. As of Aug. 1, the interest rate for such loans is 3.750%.
The application deadline is Feb. 2, 2026, which is eight months after the drought designation was made.
The USDA spokesperson said that although the emergency loan program has long been part of the Farm Service Agency, “very few producers in Southwest Colorado have taken advantage” of it.
In Montezuma County, a service center with farm loan staff is at 628 W. Fifth St. in Cortez.
To find more details on a service center near you, check online farmers.gov.
