Beg— Starting one month from now, ag producers and farmers who live within the Panhandle Groundwater District can apply for an advance to buy new water system gear.
Despite of a delay from the pandemic, the low-interest advance can assist producers with capitalizing on each drop of water.
“People don’t realize how complex that some of our operations is, all the things we have to manage,” said Bill Brown, farmer.
One is the financials of running a farm. In the period of “Farm to Table,” the expense of information sources is increasing. The Panhandle Groundwater District is offering a low-interest advance to assist with facilitating the monetary strain of buying new focus turns for water system, or soil dampness obstructs, or retrofitting their middle turns to further develop water efficiency.
“The interest is going to be 1.09% so it’s really a good interest rate to the farmer,” said C.E. Williams, senior supervisor of Panhandle Groundwater District.
“You can get as close as $600 per acre involved in a crop going in and when you’ve got a number of acres 1,000 acres times $600 you can imagine how much money you have involved in that crop,” said Brown.
For a very long time C.E. Williams has functioned as the senior supervisor of the Panhandle Groundwater District. Williams discloses to ABC 7 News the advance program has been around for a very long time however the endeavor to get subsidizing from the Texas Water Development Board this time around required almost an additional year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s a program that lets us get every drop of benefit we can out of each drop of water,” said Williams. “It’s been a beneficial program to us over a 20-year period.”
“$150,000 will get you about one quarter a mile or a smaller pivot, bigger pivots are a little more expensive but it’s good for the farmer in the fact that it’s a low-interest loan that helps facilitate the cash flow for the producer,” said Brown.
The loan is capped at $150,000 per individual rancher. When they present the desk work they will have 30 days to see whether they’ve been acknowledged or not endorsed.
For those approved for the advance, they will repay the interest in eight increments beginning in 2023.
