The USDA sent a top official to eastern North Carolina Thursday to see the flood damage to crops. USDA Under Secretary Michael Scuse, Congressman GK Butterfield and NC Farm Service Agency Executive Bob Etheridge, checked out the damage and talked with farmers about how USDA programs can help with their loss. At Penola Farm in Edgecombe County, that loss exceeds $800,000. Soybean and sweet potato farmer Kent Smith says provisions need to be changed in the USDA's non-insured crop disaster assistance program. Smith says, "It goes by countywide average so if I've got another farm over here that I've harvested the sweet potatoes on, and this farm here was under water and rotton and they've condemned it, then they take the average from the other farm and this one and average it together and it puts me over the criteria to meet to get any assistance" Scuse says, "Talking with the producers, what's been working for them, okay, when something like this happens, what doesn't work and what changes need to be made to make sure that if something like this happens again we can make programs better." Edgecombe County is one of 39 counties in North Carolina that the USDA has designated a primary natural disaster area due to flood damage and crop loss. Source - http://www.witn.com