SALEM, Ohio — Though recent rainfall provided some relief from the historically dry conditions, farmers in southeastern Ohio are still in dire straits.
“People have been feeding hay since July,” said Trista Nelson, district administrator for Morgan Soil and Water Conservation District. “Farmers are very stressed and worried about how they’re going to survive winter.”
Farmers in Morgan County and surrounding areas have been hauling water and feeding hay for months, she said. The costs are piling up as their winter feed reserves dwindle.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has financial resources available for counties declared natural disaster areas due to the drought, which includes half the state as of Oct. 8. Still, Nelson and others are concerned that it won’t be enough help soon enough for struggling farmers.
“We’re trying to push the state or others to come up with something to help,” she said.
How bad is it
More than 95% of Ohio has been in a drought or experiencing abnormally dry conditions since mid-September, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. This is the worst drought the state has seen in decades.
Rain from the remnants of Hurricane Helene brought much-needed precipitation to the state, pulling about 12% of Ohio out of drought conditions, according to the Oct. 1 Drought Monitor Report, but it wasn’t enough to stop the slow-moving disaster in Morgan County and surrounding counties.
The county has been abnormally dry since mid-June. By mid-August, all of Morgan County was in D3 extreme drought or D4 exception drought conditions, which is as bad as it gets on the U.S. Drought Monitor scale.
The staff at Morgan Soil and Water Conservation District knew things were bad for farmers, but they wanted to get hard numbers to quantify and assess their needs. So the SWCD held a drought informational meeting attended by about 100 farmers during the county fair on Sept. 6, Nelson said. The SWCD passed out surveys for farmers to describe how the drought was affecting their operations, and 77 farmers responded.
The survey found that 75% of producers are hauling water to their livestock. In June, 240,740 gallons of water were hauled. By August, that number ballooned to 997,815 gallons.
All the respondents with livestock were feeding hay already. In June, the producers who responded said they’d fed 292,000 pounds of hay. In August, 1.6 million pounds of hay were fed by Morgan County farmers.
Most farmers surveyed got a first cutting of hay this year, but only 25% got a second cutting and few got a third cutting. Row crop yields are down by at least 40%.
The district conducted another survey in September and is still collecting results. Updated information will be released in a few weeks.
Financial aid
While the challenges Morgan County farmers are facing from the drought are well-documented, they are not unique. Morgan is among the 44 Ohio counties the USDA designated as primary natural disaster areas due to the drought.
The counties listed in the primary USDA natural disaster declaration are: Adams, Athens, Belmont, Brown, Butler, Carroll, Champaign, Clark, Clermont, Clinton, Coshocton, Delaware, Fairfield, Fayette, Franklin, Gallia, Greene, Guernsey, Hamilton, Harrison, Highland, Hocking, Jackson, Jefferson, Lawrence, Licking, Logan, Madison, Meigs, Miami, Monroe, Montgomery, Morgan, Muskingum, Noble, Perry, Pickaway, Pike, Ross, Tuscarawas, Union, Vinton, Warren and Washington. Contiguous counties are also eligible for some aid.
This allows producers in these counties to get emergency loans and other financial assistance from the USDA’s Farm Service Agency. This includes the Livestock Forage Disaster Program, which compensates farmers for grazing losses, and the Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honeybees and Farm-Raised Fish Program, which compensates producers for above-normal costs of hauling water and feeding livestock.
Each program has eligibility requirements and requires farmers to have an account set up with the Farm Service Agency. It sounds easy enough but some farmers in the region have not been involved with the USDA before.
Christina Cooley, communication and outreach specialist with Ohio FSA, said the drought has brought people into the USDA offices that had never set foot in one before. This is, in part, because these farmers never felt a need to.
Southeast Ohio is dominated by livestock production, particularly beef cattle. The hills and valleys of Appalachian Ohio lend themselves well to pastures and hay ground. While they may be involved in conservation programs, few producers are in the federal crop insurance program or even the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program, which covers forages. In Morgan County, only 7% of producers that responded to the survey had crop insurance or NAP.
The USDA offices in these regions are busy, too, since the natural disaster designations opened up new programs for area farmers. Cooley said the FSA is booked out with appointments for at least a month, but eligibility for the programs doesn’t end until next year. She encouraged any farmers impacted by the drought to contact their local FSA office to get the process started. More resources can also be found online here.
“Call to get set up and get their names on our books and we’ll find out what monies are available for you,” Cooley said.
Other help
While the help from the USDA is appreciated, Nelson wants the state to do more to provide immediate aid for farmers, like it did in 1999.
In September 1999, Ohio Gov. Bob Taft allocated $5 million to emergency hay/forage assistance and to develop water sources for drought-stricken livestock producers. Of that, $4 million went to pay for hay and $1 million went to water source development.
The state paid up to $50 per ton for hay purchased between Aug. 10 and Dec. 1, 1999. There were also payments of up to $100 per cow-calf pair or for 10 mature sheep, with a maximum of $2,500 per farm. The state also paid up to $1,000 to develop springs or deepen wells.
“You came into the soil and water office, brought your hay receipt and they reimbursed you,” Nelson said. There was no lengthy bureaucratic process involved.
Ohio Department of Agriculture director Brian Baldridge visited Morgan, Washington, Athens, Monroe and Noble counties in late August and early September to talk with county agencies, local elected officials and farmers about the impact of the extreme drought.
Baldridge said, at the time, that the ODA’s role is “connecting impacted crop and livestock farmers to resources and assistance.”
This has included pushing farmers toward available USDA resources and creating a hay directory to help connect farmers with hay for sale (Find the directory at agri.ohio.gov/divisions/administration/resources/ohio-hay-directory).
But so far it looks like direct financial aid from the state is not in the works. Baldridge said in a statement to Farm and Dairy that as a regulatory agency, “ODA has no specific authority or funding to assist with drought.” Gov. Mike DeWine’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
