Parts of Lorenzo Whitcomb’s corn fields in Williston look like rice paddies. Muddy water has swamped the spindly stalks.
Whitcomb said the worst case scenario is that he’ll lose 25 percent of the crop he uses to feed his dairy cows.
“We grow about 300 acres of corn, probably 50 acres were directly affected by high water, flooding, the rain,” he said. “Of that 50 acres, probably about 10 acres are dead. They won’t produce anything at all.”
If that sounds bad, Don Pouliot who milks about 450 cows in nearby Westford, has it worse. Pouliot’s farm is on the Brown’s River, which has flooded several times this year, turning his fields into bogs. Pouliot said it’s the wettest weather he’s seen in 40 years of farming.
“We’ve got 450 acres of corn. And I would guess 75 percent of it is dead or not going to do anything," he said.
His son got stuck in one of the muddy fields yesterday. "So he called me down last night to pull him out. I wished I hadn’t have gone,” he said. “There’s a 70 acre field. And there’s probably five acres on that field that’s salvageable.”
Gov. Peter Shumlin and Agriculture Secretary Chuck Ross are urging farmers to document damage like this, after an unprecedented two months of rain left fields underwater and ruined crop across the state. Officials said the documentation, including photographs of ruined fields, is important to get insurance payments and to get federal disaster
The financial losses aren’t yet known. But the federal Farm Services Agency is expected to request an emergency disaster declaration once the totals are calculated after crops are harvested.
Shumlin went to the Whitcomb farm on Thursday to highlight the problem. He said every area in the state – and all types of farms – have been hurt by the more than 20 inches of rains that’s fallen this growing season.
“We stand here on a dairy farm… but it’s affected every single sector of the ag economy. Our dairy farmers trying to grow silage, trying to grow hay, grow feed. It’s affected our berry farmers, our vegetable farmers, our beef and meat farmers. There’s no one who’s escaped some damage,” he said.
Agriculture Secretary Chuck Ross said after floods in the spring and fall of 2011, followed last year by a wet spring and then a semi-drought, farmers deserved a break.
“It just isn’t fair. Farming is hard enough work to begin with. But with weather like this three years in a row, it’s nearly impossible for all farmers to be able to succeed the way they’re capable of succeeding when they get decent weather,” he said.
Ross said government will do what it can. But he said there’s ways that the public can help as well, perhaps even pitching in to work on neighboring farms.
“Certainly for those farms that are producing products we can buy in Vermont, now more than ever, buy local,” he said. “It helps on many levels to step up and expend your dollars on Vermont farms.”
Farmers Don Pouliot and Lorenzo Whitcomb said they’re trying to stay optimistic. Pouliot said he’ll plant some other late-season feed crops, such as sorghum, if and when his fields dry out.
