SALEM, OH — The situation posed by the severe drought conditions in Ohio is getting desperate, according to Fred Deel, a farmer from Vinton, Ohio, spoiling everything from corn and soybean harvests to hay and feed yields for livestock. He hasn’t seen anything like it in years.
“In my opinion, this is probably the worst we’ve had since ‘88,” he said on a call with reporters hosted by the U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown Sept. 18. “It’s very dry.”
Indeed, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, more than a dozen Ohio counties are in the most severe drought category, Exceptional Drought (D4). Exceptional droughts stunt crop growth, force water shortages, stress livestock and risk fire in parched fields.
Brown, a Democrat who serves on the Senate Agriculture Committee, organized the conference to share resources available to impacted farmers and to increase awareness of the state’s greatest drought since the Dust Bowl more than a century ago, hitting the southeast particularly hard.
“Ohioans all over the state are feeling its effects,” Brown said. “It’s devastating for farmers who put food on the table for families across the country.”
USDA response
Moreover, he said, as the drought becomes more untenable, it poses dire financial consequences for farmers. One in seven Ohioans depend on the food and agriculture industries for work.
“Farmers are used to uncertainty and bad weather … But this is worse than a wet couple of weeks or a dry spell. This is an emergency,” Brown said, adding that Congress is already discussing potential ad hoc disaster assistance packages to provide more support for Ohio.
“Farmers are resourceful, they are resilient; we will work to make sure they will have what they need to come out strong out of this.”
The USDA declared 28 Ohio counties as primary disaster counties in response to the drought conditions, and that number will likely go up.
Another 17 counties are classed as contiguous — meaning they border the most severely affected areas, where conditions aren’t much better. These designations allow the USDA Farm Service Agency to provide agricultural producers with help via a range of programs accessible to both new and current FSA users.
Meanwhile, more help may be on the way. With hay supplies being used three to four months earlier than expected, Ohio Department of Agriculture Director Brian Baldridge asked USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack in a letter last week to allow Ohio farmers who are facing the drought to conduct emergency haying and grazing on Conservation Reserve Program enrolled land, a move endorsed by Sen. Brown, who asked Vilsack to grant ODA’s request.
Farm Bill
But the historic drought isn’t the only maelstrom facing farmers. The drought relief programs are supported under the 2018 Farm Bill, which was set to expire last year but was extended for another year. The bill is now due to expire at the end of September.
Brown’s colleagues in the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture wrote a new 2024 Farm Bill, but it is currently stalled in the appropriations process while attention in Congress is dominated by efforts to keep the government funded and open.
According to the Congressional Research Service, the timing and consequences of the farm bill expiring vary by program, with certain provisions of the current bill to expire after Sept. 30, upon the end of the fiscal year. Other aspects of the bill such as farm commodity support programs will expire on Dec. 31, which is the end of the crop year.
Several drought assistance programs available to Ohio agricultural producers for drought relief will not turn to dust overnight if the current farm bill expires without an extension or new bill.
The federal crop insurance program, for example, is permanently funded, as well as the USDA’s Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program. Past farm bills also permanently authorized four disaster programs available to farmers needing drought relief now, including the Livestock Indemnity Program (LIP), the Livestock Forage Disaster Program (LFP), the Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honey Bees, and Farm-Raised Fish Program (ELAP) and the Tree Assistance Program (TAP).
USDA is also permanently authorized to create and guarantee loans, for which Congress allots funds through the yearly appropriations process.
“Ohio farmers need to know that the disaster relief they rely on is still there. It is still there. It isn’t affected by the delay,” said Brown, who also mentioned his discussions with both Republican and Democratic members leading the committee tasked with drafting the new farm bill legislation. He expressed his optimism that the process will be finished and the bill passed soon.
“I hope we get it done, if not before the election, after the election, before the new year.”
