Like the USDA, I have been playing around with disaster declarations. (In case you have been wondering what I have been up to, the graphs below took a lot of time to made)

Disaster Areas Declared In The Last 30 Days

The USDA has declared 252 counties to be disaster areas in the last 30 days, as can be seen in chart below. The red represents new primary disaster areas, and the yellow represents new contiguous disaster areas. (the chart shows only Secretarial disaster designations (one of four types of disaster declarations). See second chart further down for both secretarial and presidential disaster areas)





Below are the emergency designation news headlines from the last thirty days.

USDA Designates Four Counties in Nebraska as Primary Natural Disaster Areas (Dec 10, 2009)
USDA Designates Johnson County in Wyoming as a Primary Natural Disaster Area (Dec 10, 2009)
USDA Designates 19 Counties in Georgia as Primary Natural Disaster Areas (Dec 8, 2009)
USDA Designates 13 Counties in Arizona as Primary Natural Disaster Areas (Dec 8, 2009)
USDA Designates Two Counties in New Mexico as Primary Natural Disaster Areas (Dec 8, 2009)
USDA Designates Hawaii County in Hawaii as a Primary Natural Disaster Area (Nov 30, 2009)
USDA Designates Cochran County in Texas as a Primary Natural Disaster Area (Nov 30, 2009)
USDA Designates Toole and Valley Counties in Montana as Primary Natural Disaster Areas (Nov 30, 2009)
USDA Designates Castro County in Texas as a Primary Natural Disaster Area (Nov 30, 2009)
USDA Designates 53 Parishes in Louisiana as Primary Natural Disaster Areas (Nov 30, 2009)
USDA Designates Bowie County in Texas as a Primary Natural Disaster Area (Nov 30, 2009)
USDA Designates Entire State of Rhode Island as a Primary Natural Disaster Area (Nov 30, 2009)
USDA Designates Two Counties in Montana as Primary Natural Disaster Areas (Nov 30, 2009)
USDA Designates Six Counties in Washington as Primary Natural Disaster Areas (Nov 30, 2009)
USDA Designates Six Counties in Connecticut as Primary Natural Disaster Areas (Nov 30, 2009)
USDA Designates Garfield County in Montana as a Primary Natural Disaster Area (Nov 30, 2009)
USDA Designates 24 Counties in North Dakota as Primary Natural Disaster Areas (Nov 30, 2009)
USDA Designates Oxford County in Maine as a Primary Natural Disaster Area (Nov 30, 2009)
USDA Designates 17 Counties in New York as Primary Natural Disaster Areas (Nov 30, 2009)
USDA Designates Two Counties in New York as Primary Natural Disaster Areas (Nov 30, 2009)
USDA Designates Allegany County in New York as a Primary Natural Disaster Area (Nov 23, 2009)
USDA Designates 79 Counties in Mississippi as Primary Natural Disaster Areas (Nov 17, 2009)
USDA Designates 10 Counties in Maryland as Primary Natural Disaster Areas (Nov 17, 2009)
USDA Designates Lassen County in California as a Primary Natural Disaster Area (Nov 17, 2009)


Understanding Disaster Declarations

The USDA explains about the declaration process for agricultural-related disasters.

July 2009
Emergency Disaster Designation and Declaration Process

Overview

Agricultural-related disasters are quite common. One-half to two-thirds of the counties in the United States have been designated as disaster areas in each of the past several years [Around 75% of the US is designated as disaster area right now]. Producers may apply for low-interest emergency (EM) loans in counties named as primary or contiguous under a disaster designation.

Four types of disaster designations are made: 1) Presidential major disaster declaration; 2) USDA Secretarial disaster designation; 3) Farm Service Agency (FSA) Administrator's Physical Loss Notification and, 4) Quarantine designation.

…
Presidential major disaster declarations, which must be requested by a governor to the President, are administered through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). A Presidential major disaster declaration can be made within days or hours of the initial request. FEMA immediately notifies FSA of the primary counties named in a Presidential declaration.

USDA Secretarial disaster designations must be requested of the Secretary of Agriculture by a governor or the governor's authorized representative, or by an Indian Tribal Council leader. The Secretarial disaster designation is the most widely used and its process is the most complicated of the four. [Not this year. There have been nearly an equal amount of presidential and secretarial disaster designation this year]

Secretarial Disaster Designation Process

Damages and losses prompting disaster designations must be due to a natural disaster; and a minimum 30-percent production loss of at least one crop in the county must have occurred.
…
FSA Programs Initiated by Designations and/or Declarations

All four types of designations, (Secretarial disaster designations, Presidential disaster declarations, APLNs, and quarantine designations) immediately trigger the availability of low-interest FSA EM loans to eligible producers in all primary and contiguous counties.

USDA Disaster Designations (Secretarial and Presidential)

There have been nearly equal amounts of presidential and secretarial disaster designation this year.




My reaction: The US government is using a mixture of secretarial and presidential disaster designations to try to hide how badly the 2009/10 harvest has been.