Ag News: Federal Disaster Relief Available
**Producers facing losses from hurricanes, wildfires, flooding and other extreme weather can now apply for federal relief.
According to agrimarketing.com, Congress approved a disaster aid package in June including more than $3 billion for agricultural losses.
Farmers prevented from planting a crop after major Midwest flooding this year will be eligible for aid, so will farmers whose stored grains were damaged by flooding.
**Dogs trained to detect bacteria that cause a fatal plant disease found signs of the bacteria in California citrus groves, and farmers have begun removing trees as a result.
The detector dogs, according to the California Farm Bureau, check citrus trees for the bacterium that causes HLB, which has killed trees at Southern California residences but has not been found in a commercial grove.
The dogs alerted to more than 200 trees.
**South Korea is the latest Asian country to be hit by African Swine Fever. The virus was detected at a farm near the country's border with North Korea.
In an effort to contain the disease, agrimarketing.com reports, nearly 4,000 pigs will be culled, and the country's ag minister placed a 48-hour lockdown on all hog farms, slaughterhouses, and feed mills across the country.
South Korea is Asia's fourth-largest pork consuming nation and according to the USDA, the country's live inventory was 11.3 million hogs.