by Ken Quintanilla

Guam - Today was the ending for the initial period for farmers to make their claims in order to collect on $200,000 worth of grants from lapsed emergency funds.

The Department of Agriculture has spent the past few weeks processing claims from farmers many of whom unfortunately lacked receipts. Director Tita Taitague says those who qualified have already started picking up their checks late last week which range from $200 to $17,000.

"The base for this compensation is on your production, how much it cost for you to grow that particular field," she explained. "If it's a one acre cucumber, there's already a table where we base it and it's there where we base the amount to give out the farmers."

She reminds farmers that receipts are needed in order to file your claims. She adds if the entire $200,000 in grants is not exhausted for the claims, the remainder would go back to the Department of Administration. Farmers however can still continue filing claims as after today, the Department of Agriculture can begin paying grants to the farmers from another batch of funding from a legislative appropriation that provides $450,000 additional. Farmers can make their claims until January 11, 2014 for this second batch of grants. For more information call 300-7970.