At the latest meeting of the Emergency Drought Commission, Farm Director KC Sheperd caught up with Representative Dell Kerbs and talked about the new funds allocated to the drought commission.
After the legislature first allocated 20 million dollars to the Emergency Drought Commission, Kerbs said that when that money ran out, there was work to be done to make sure producers who did not yet receive funding had that opportunity.
“The legislative body did not want to stop there,” Kerbs said. “Out of that, there were some additional applications that were going to be unfunded from the 20 million dollars, so the legislative body added another 17 million dollars to take care of those existing applications that were already in the queue.”
Through the budgetary process, Kerbs said, the legislative body then saw the importance of those funds as drought will continue to be an issue.
“We added, in the budget, we put in 20 million dollars, additional into that,” Kerbs said. “So, over this last legislative cycle, it has been roughly around 57 million dollars that the legislative body has added to help mitigate drought issues all over the state.”
As the commission was previously a three-member commission, Kerbs said at the meeting that two more commissioners were added: Pete Nichols of Washita County (appointed by the Speaker of the House) and Josh Emerson of McIntosh County (appointed by the Pro Tem).
“To continue working through that process and getting that funding out there is the most important thing for us to help these producers in the agriculture industry,” Kerbs said.
At the meeting, Kerbs said the legislature asked the commission for a report of unfunded projects. The commission provided this information to the legislative body.
“We are going to have drought to some level all the time,” Kerbs said.
With the commission’s help, Kerbs said the legislative body was made aware of the continuous drought issues so they can continue to allocate funds for producers.
“At the end of the day, if our producers aren’t out there raising their cattle, and running production agriculture, it is going to affect all of us in the grocery store, and everywhere on our tables for food,” Kerbs said. “We need to make sure we are doing everything we can to help mitigate the issues that are ongoing and challenges every day.”
The goal of the legislature, Kerbs said, is to be proactive rather than reactive.
“It (drought) is going to always be here in some form or fashion, so let’s just stay on top of that as much as we can, and move from a reactionary position to a proactive position,” Kerbs said
