The plight of Colorado farmers has not gone unnoticed by their elected officials.

Last Friday, Gov. Bill Owens sent a letter to Dan Glickman, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, asking him to designate nine counties as disaster-impacted: Montezuma, Dolores, La Plata, Archuleta, Conejos, Eagle, Garfield, Pueblo, and San Miguel.

A disaster-impacted designation would allow producers to tap into the Emergency Loan Program, Noninsured Assis-tance Program and other USDA assistance that may become available.

The Emergency Loan program would provide low-interest-loan assistance to qualifying ranchers and farmers, but producers had to have applied for the Noninsured Assistance Program before the drought occurred.

"Prolonged drought in the state continues to damage pastureland resulting in substantially reduced forage for livestock in the area," Owens wrote.

Moisture levels in the Montezuma County were at 58 percent of normal in April, 27 percent in May, 25 percent in June, and 31 percent in July.

Crops were also damaged by freezing temperatures. This was complicated by freezing temperatures which damaged alfalfa crops in May.

Recently, the Farm Service Agency announced that because of a four-month drought, producers would be able to hay and graze acreage in the Conservation Reserve Program.

So far this year, Dolores County has received 3.5 inches of rain.

Dan Fernandez, Dolores County Extension agent, said that rain in March was really the only month that kept them from official drought status earlier in the year.

"Some areas have gotten a lot of rain, other areas haven’t gotten any," said Fernandez.

"Anything will help at this point," he said.

The Montezuma County commissioners said Monday that they have written letters asking the governor to plead their case to the federal government and this is a crucial step in the process.