The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has initiated the new Supplemental Revenue Assistance Payments program designed to help eligible farmers who suffered crop production losses during the 2008 crop year.

SURE, as the program is called, is part of the 2008 Farm Bill.

"This program is an important component of the farm safety net and will provide financial assistance to producers who have suffered crop losses due to natural disasters," said Aaron Martin, executive director of USDA's Farm Service Agency (FSA) in North Carolina. "Producers will receive payments beginning in January, in time to help them with planning for next year's crop."

Martin said producers should visit their FSA county office if they sustained crop production losses during the 2008 crop year.

The Moore-Montgomery FSA office is in the Moore County Agriculture Center on Pinehurst Avenue in Carthage.

To be eligible for SURE, producers must have suffered at least a 10 percent production loss of their total farm revenue. In addition, producers must meet the risk management purchase requirement by either obtaining a policy or plan of insurance, under the Federal Crop Insurance Act or NAP (Non-insured Crop Disaster Assistance Program) coverage, for all economically significant crops.

For 2008 crops, producers had the opportunity to obtain a waiver of the risk management purchase requirement through a buy-in provision. Producers considered socially disadvantaged, a beginning farmer or rancher, or a limited resource farmer may be eligible for SURE without a policy or plan of insurance or NAP coverage.

In addition to meeting the risk management purchase requirement, a producer must have a farming interest physically located in a county that was declared a primary disaster county or contiguous county by the Agriculture Secretary under a Secretarial Disaster Designation.

Regardless of a Secretarial Disaster Designation, individual producers may also be eligible for SURE if the actual production on the farm is less than 50 percent of the normal production on the farm due to a natural disaster.