The Agriculture Department’s Farm Service Agency announced Friday that emergency requests for haying and grazing on Conservation Reserve Program acres will be based on drought severity as determined by the U.S. Drought Monitor, rather than requests that originate with FSA at the country level and require state and national level approval.

As of Friday, 500 counties nationwide had triggered eligibility for emergency haying and grazing on CRP acres.

A list by state and a map of eligible counties are updated weekly and available on FSA’s website.

FSA Administrator Richard Fordyce said, “These program changes will simplify the authorization process with an automatic trigger by severe drought designation, allowing livestock producers to quickly access much-needed forage.”