FERRIDAY, La. – There is no telling when Concordia Parish farmers could expect to see payments from a $8.7 billion farm aid package President Clinton signed Friday, one farm service official said Monday.

&uot;I would hate to even speculate at this point,&uot;&160;said Kevin Case, executive director of the U.S. Farm Service Agency office in Ferriday.

The office will notify farmers as soon as possible of what funds are available and how they can apply for them, Case said.

But he said it will probably be two weeks before his office even gets official notification of the measure and what funded will be offered under it.

That is how long it takes for Congress to make the measure into a regulation and for official copies of the regulation to make their way from Washington to the state level and finally to local offices, he said.

About $6 billion of the aid package will go to help grain, cotton and soybean farmers who continue to suffer from low crop prices.

About $1.4 billion will go to producers whose crops and livestock were hurt by weather-related problems.