LAS VEGAS (AP) — The federal government is adding White Pine County in Nevada to a list of primary natural disaster areas due to drought.

An announcement Wednesday from the U.S. Department of Agriculture makes farmers and ranchers eligible for disaster assistance in White Pine and surrounding counties in Nevada and Utah.

That includes Elko, Eureka, Lincoln and Nye in Nevada, and Juab, Millard and Tooele in Utah.

The USDA has made similar designations periodically in recent years in the region gripped by record drought.

In February, it put 11 of the Nevada's 17 counties on the drought disaster list, and named five eastern California counties, three counties in Oregon and Owyhee County in Idaho as contiguous.

The move gives farmers eight months to apply for loans to help cover part of their losses.