The Herald-Zeitung

The United States Department of Agriculture and the Texas Department of Agriculture’s publicity efforts last week about programs to help livestock producers was more about promoting politicians than providing effective drought-related assistance to ranchers.

On Sept. 14, the USDA sent out a press release that announced “that producers may begin applying for benefits under the provisions of the Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honeybees, and Farm-Raised Fish Program (ELAP) and the Livestock Forage Disaster Program (LFP).”

The second paragraph: “President Obama and I are committed to meeting the needs of those producers who have suffered devastating losses from natural disasters,” said (Agriculture Secretary Tom) Vilsack ...”

Two days later, the Texas Department of Agriculture issued a press release. The state beat the feds with its politicizing by not even waiting until the second paragraph:

“AUSTIN – After repeated requests from Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is now allowing Texas ranchers plagued by drought and wildfires to apply for much-needed emergency assistance.”

What further should frustrate ranchers and farmers (and taxpayers) is that after the Herald-Zeitung received the press releases, a spokesperson at the USDA’s Farm Services Agency office in Lockhart, which serves Comal, Hays and Caldwell counties, said the office had not received any information on how to receive or process applications for the drought-relief program.

Another day passes before the Lockhart office receives its procedures. On Friday, a press release from the USDA’s Farm Service Agency in Texas, announces that now, five days after the USDA’s press release from Washington, and three days after the Texas Department of Agriculture’s press release, the local offices are prepared to take applications.

And regrettably for the drought-plagued ranchers and farmers, the application process appears about as simple as building a nuclear reactor.

The requirements to qualify are complicated and the benefits appear to many ranchers as inadequate to provide real help to cover the escalating feed costs caused by the drought.

Both the USDA and the Texas Department of Agriculture seem to have a policy of politics first, real help later, maybe.

This is one example of why many citizens are cynical and distrusting of the priorities and motives of politicians inside the Beltway and in Austin.