Southwest Counties’ Ag Damage Still Being Tallied

By Ron Johnson, Dairy Editor
Wednesday, August 29, 2007 2:20 PM CDT

Some Losses Won’t Be Known Until After Harvest

Agricultural damage from flooding in southwest Wisconsin is still being assessed. Meanwhile, the rain keeps falling.

Agri-View spoke with Farm Service Agency (FSA) directors and Extension agents in four counties late last week. They painted much the same picture of the damage, but with some of the details differing.

Richland County

In Richland County, FSA executive director Jared Reuter said Friday morning, “You hear about the bottomland being washed out. There’s some fence damage and field road damage from erosion. I guess when I went out, I was pleasantly surprised to see waterways doing what they’re supposed to do. But it’s (the damage) really isolated to the bottoms, where the water came up and where it was flowing through.”

While the storms that brought the rain pretty much hit all of Richland County, some areas are worse off than others, according to Reuter.

“Some farmers saw quite a bit of loss,” he said. “Some saw minimal to none. Thinks entire county hit, some areas worse off. But in general, I saw damage in every township. It was widespread.”

Happy for rain at first

The trouble began, according to Reuter, more than three weeks ago. That’s when the first of the rain started. It saturated the soil, setting the stage for flooding, since the ground could not hold more moisture.

“We came out of a dry spell in July and everybody was happy because the rain turned on in August,” he recalled.

Then came Saturday, Aug. 18, with seven inches of rain - even 10 inches in spots. The next day brought “sprinkles,” the FSA director said, with more rain late last Thursday. Last Friday brought even more precipitation in some parts of Richland County.

“It sure isn’t drying things out,” Reuter commented.

On Friday Reuter said some farmers were worried about wind knocking corn over. “Certainly, the ground being so soft isn’t helping things any,” he observed.

Tell FSA about losses

Along with crop damage, Richland County farmers have reported to the FSA some livestock losses. Reuter said they include one farm having 170 chickens killed, along with “a few cows, a couple of adult dairy cows and a few calves” at other farms. Farmers, he explained, are being asked to report and document losses so that if money becomes available, they might be reimbursed.

Farmers need to apply to their county FSA office in case the Emergency Conservation Program (ECP) is brought into play, too. The ECP could help farmers pay for cleaning up debris, repair conservation structures, and rebuild washed-out fences, Reuter said.

The ECP does not cover crop losses. Some sort of disaster reimbursement program is needed for that.

At any rate, Reuter advised farmers to tell the FSA about debris they will have to move, fences that need rebuilding, crops and cattle damaged or killed, buildings harmed, machinery and equipment damaged, hay bales washed away - “anything they need for their operation.”

‘Disaster’ declaration

This past Sunday it was announced that President Bush had signed a measure declaring Sauk, Richland, La Crosse, Vernon and Crawford counties a disaster area. That makes federal money available to residents who do not have insurance. Federal aid might include grants for temporary housing for flood victims, low-cost loans to cover losses to uninsured property, home repairs, and other programs.

Last Thursday, three counties in Minnesota were declared disaster areas, too. They are Fillmore, Winona and Houston.

Roads washed out

Besides crop and livestock, damage in Richland County included roads and bridges. Reuter said a section of Highway 80 north of Richland Center, near Rockbridge, was washed out. And, in the southern part of the county, near Muscoda, a bridge on Highway 60 that was just finished being built a month ago was washed out.

Reuter said he traveled through parts of the county about 10 days ago. “There were a lot of bridges I was really nervous about crossing,” he admitted. You’re always nervous when you see the water right up to the cement.”

He figured all the damage will not show up for some time, even though the damage has will likely tally into the millions of dollars.

“I think it’s going to be pretty easy to reach that,” Reuter said. “I don’t know far into the millions we’ll be. When you lose 500 acres of corn that’s completely gone, that’s a lot of money right there.

“This even isn’t over yet,” he predicts. “We’re not over by a long shot. As long as it keeps raining, and keeps that ground wet… We don’t know two weeks from now that we’re not going to get another four-to-five-inch rain. With the ground saturated - it just ain’t over.”

Even without more rain, farmers might find that their crops have developed mold. Or, they might be surprised when they try to harvest corn and find an “800-pound tree trunk” in a field,” he warned.

Crawford County

In Crawford County, FSA executive director John Baird told Agri-View that his office is trying to implement the Emergency Conservation Program. IF the ECP is dusted off and started, farms meeting the eligibility criteria could get money to help them remove some of the larger debris from their fields. He said money might also be available to reshape damaged fields, replace fences, and restore conservation practices such as grass waterways and buffer strips.

But farmers need to file applications with the FSA “before they start any of the work,” Baird emphasized. “They also have to understand that right now these applications would be filed manually, and right now there’s absolutely no guarantee that funding will be available.”

“Filed manually” means farmers have to go to their county FSA office and file requests for cost-share assistance. They also need to explain the damage their farms suffered.

There are caveats as to what damage might be covered. Baird points out that, to be covered at all under the ECP, the damage must have occurred in an area that does not frequently flood. Specifically, the area cannot have flooded three times during the past 25 years.

And, there might be a minimum damage amount that has to be exceeded before reimbursement is made. Baird likens it to an insurance deductible.

Farmers who apply for ECP assistance will be visited by an FSA representative who will look over the damages. Baird said it’s a good idea for farmers to photograph the damage. And if they happen to have photographs from before the flooding occurred, so much the better.

Crop damage will be evaluated after harvest, Baird said. For any reimbursement under the ECP, the damage has to reach at least a 35 percent loss for the entire farm - not 35 percent or more for one particular field.

Another point: According to Baird, farmers might have to have their damaged crops covered by federal crop insurance to get reimbursement.

“We have a lot of unknowns at this point,” he told Agri-View. “And then we need it to stop raining.”

Kickapoo valley worst

Most of the crop damage in Crawford County came in the Kickapoo River Valley, according to Baird. The winding Kickapoo snakes its way down from Soldiers Grove in the northern part of the county before eventually dumping into the Wisconsin River near Wauzeka in the southern part of the county. It’s a stream that is renowned for its flooding.

The northern third of the county got most of the rain from the weekend that set off the flooding. “We had reports of about 14 inches up in that area,” Baird said.

He estimated that perhaps 1,000 crop acres were affected. About three-fourths of that was corn, with the rest soybeans, along with some specialty crops in the Star Valley area.

As of Friday, the water had not entirely receded. The FSA director mentioned corn with three-and-a-half feet of water up the stalks.

Vernon County

Vernon County, just north of Crawford and west of Richland, was also soggy on Friday.

“We have a tremendous amount of moisture. I wish I could package it and ship it up to Door County,” remarked Vernon County Extension Agriculture Agent Tim Rehbein. “They’re so dry up there that a lot of their crops are fried off.”

Rehbein said some farmers reported getting nine to 10 inches of rain in 24 hours on Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 18 and 19. Making matters worse, parts of Vernon County received three more inches the following Tuesday, and another inch by early afternoon of last Friday.

The first major storm caused “quite a bit of infrastructure damage,” according to the Extension agent. While there was crop damage, in terms of the county’s agriculture as a whole, it’s not major he added.

Some farms lost fences, and soybeans in valleys - especially near streams - “…went down flat, got full of mud and are pretty well shot,” Rehbein remarked.

Some cornfields were flooded, but the water mostly stayed below the cobs. If that corn was not knocked down, the yield loss might be small - just five to 10 percent, he figured.

But in the Chaseburg area, some cornfields had water over the tassels, Rehbein noted. When water reaches that high and covers the ears, it “starts to suffocate all the growing tissue in the cob,” he explained. “There we’re going to get more production loss.”

Corn flattened

Besides rain and flooding, wind on Tuesday night knocked down some corn. With the ground soaked, the stalks’ roots pulled out of the ground. Some of that wind damage came near the community of Liberty Pole.

“There’s downed corn all the way from De Soto to Hillsboro,” the Extension agent remarked.

Tobacco, grapes hit

Vernon County also saw damage to some of its tobacco. Land devoted to tobacco fell to just three acres a few years ago, but this year it is back to 100 acres, Rehbein said.

“A fair amount” of this year’s tobacco was already speared and hung in sheds when the rains came, he observed. But, “There were actually people cutting and spearing tobacco in the rain Tuesday night,” Rehbein said.

Some tobacco is still in the fields. He said tobacco buyers will come to the county to look at it, but whether they will want it is anybody’s guess.

Tobacco prices have been running at around $1.75 per pound, according to the Extension agent. If an acre yields 2,000 pounds, that’s a value of $3,500.

Another specialty crop in Vernon County suffered damage. Vineyards had the grapes knocked off the vines and trellis posts snapped off in the strong winds.

Smaller milk trucks

For the most part, milk trucks have been able to get to farms, he said. But some drivers went searching for smaller trucks that could better navigate roads that were reduced to one lane because of washouts and mudslides.

“There are reports of cattle lost. But we don’t know what that means yet,” Rehbein said. “When a lot of fences disappeared, cattle went to higher ground. We don’t know if cattle ‘lost’ is dead stock or just - lost.”

A “few” farms had liquid manure creeping up to the tops of their storage structures. Many, said Rehbein, were planning to siphon off the top few inches and apply it to alfalfa “or someplace it’s going to do the least amount of damage,” he described.

Big bales plug dam

Vernon County’s many earthen flood-control dams held strong, for the most part. But the one in Hidden Valley caused problems, Rehbein said.

“There were quite a few round hay bales that got washed down into it,” he related. “They immediately plugged the outlet. When that happened, with no water going through the outlet, it immediately went to the auxiliary spillway, and the auxiliary spillway then started to fail.”

Rehbein told Agri-View that he was still trying to assess the main storm’s intensity.

“If a six-inch rain is a 100-year storm, what is a 12-inch rain?” he asked. “The NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service) charts don’t go up that high - that we found yet. Is this a 500-year storm?”

La Crosse County

In La Crosse County, UW-Extension Agriculture and Horticulture Agent Steve Huntzicker said the southern part of the county was hit the hardest. Pastures were damaged when flood waters deposited rocks and debris in them. Soybeans lodged, and some field corn, sweet corn, and pumpkins were harmed.

Highway 35, also known as the “Great River Road,” was closed for a while south of La Crosse to Goose Island, but is open now. Damage to the railroad tracks that parallel Highway 35 has been repaired, and the freight trains are rolling once more. Some side roads were closed because of downed trees or debris on them.

But Huntzicker said he’d heard no reports of damage to farm buildings, nor any livestock lost or killed.

“We’re fortunate in La Crosse County, I would say. A lot of it didn’t hit us directly,” the UW-Extension agent said. “We were able to survive in a good portion of the county without a lot of damage. We weren’t countywide, like Vernon and some of the surrounding counties.”

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