Louisiana farmers upset by slow federal relief

Louisiana farmers can apply for $250 million in direct

federal relief to compensate for crop losses from hurricanes, but state officials say the money has been too slow in coming.U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns set aside $250 million in October for disaster assistance in six states - Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina and Texas.But the money was not made immediately available. Even three months later, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has not finished program regulations to allow farmers to apply for assistance.How are you going to feed cattle six to eight months from now? state Agriculture Commissioner Bob Odom asked. That is a bunch of bull.Rep. Charlie Melancon, D- Napoleonville, said Florida farmers with crops were damaged by Hurricane Charley in August 2004 received loss payments in about two months.Federal officials were reluctant to start a separate disaster- relief program at the same time that Congress was considering how much agricultural aid to include in a hurricane-relief package approved in December, said John Johnson, the deputy administrator for farm programs at the Farm Service Agency.We did not want to put out our programs only to find out they conflicted with something that Congress could authorize, Johnson said.Johnson said that after the Florida program was enacted last year, Congress created supplementary programs that conflicted with existing services. In some cases, farmers were ineligible for the new programs because they took the intial payments, Johnson said.