WAHOO - This year's wild weather has hit area producers hard.

Saunders County Extension Educator Keith Glewen said his office continues to field damage reports and questions from area ag producers.

The damage reports to cropland have been staggering.

"Unbelievable, that's the word we are using a lot around here," he said.

"This will be a year that we won't forget for a long time as far as ag production goes. God gave us seven dollars a bushel for soybeans and 15 dollars a bushel for corn, but he can't guarantee us a crop."

Beginning with the flooding in late May, there were at least four separate storm events that have swept through the county. Each storm saw a different part of the county ravaged.

The most recent in the string of storms roared through the northern part of Saunders County on June 27.

 

Saunders County Emergency Manager Terry Miller said producers whose farms were in the path of the storm saw heavy wind and hail damage.

"It was a heavy loss on the ag side," he said.

Straight-line winds between 110 and 115 miles per hour were reported with the storm, along with hail that was up to golf-ball sized.

According to Glewen, the discussion going on with producers now is what are the next steps after the damage has been assessed.

"Their options are slowly dwindling away because of the time," he added.

There is still time to replant a soybean field. A viable harvest can still be expected if the seed is put into the ground before July 15.

However, Glewen said the yields would still take a hit. Even with an average growing season for the remainder of the season, the yields could be cut in half in replanted fields.

"We are expecting potentially half of a crop," he added. "And, that's if everything is average because we have no way to predict anything else."

In fields where the corn has been damaged, the replanting option is not viable.
"Corn's out of the picture," Glewen stated.

He said some corn producers are planning to plant soybeans instead. However, some do not have that option because of the chemicals put into the ground at the time of corn planting.

According to the extension educator, a few corn producers are considering replanting knowing that the corn will not reach full maturity. In those cases, the goal is to use the stalk for silage and cattle feeding.

Glewen said if there was any good news for producers it is that insurance will help cover some of the costs incurred by the storms.

"We estimate 70 to 80 percent with some crop insurance, if there's any silver lining," he said. However, he added that meant that there were quite a few producers that did not have insurance and, with rising costs, those that did have insurance still would not be able to recoup all of their losses.

Saunders County Farm Service Agency (FSA) Director Susan Eisenhauer said that there are also a few other aid options that might come into play. If the state office believes there is at least a 30 percent loss of one crop within the county, they can request a damage assessment report from the county emergency committee.

This committee is composed of the FSA Director, the county farm loan officer, a district representative and a representative from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.

Once the committee pulls together its report, it would be sent off to the state. The United States Department of Agriculture Secretary would make the ultimate decision as to whether to declare the area a disaster.

Eisenhauer stressed that this sort of secretarially declared disaster is very rare.

"It's actually tougher to get than a presidentially declared disaster," she said.

Eisenhauer also stressed that the county emergency committee has not yet been asked by the state for a report. However, she said it was a distinct possibility that they would be.

"We've had four disasters already hit this county in the last month," she noted.

If the county does get a secretarially determined disaster declaration, it would make the county's producer eligible for aid under the new 2008 permanent disaster aid program. This would apply to Saunders County and all of the counties immediately surrounding it.

However, Eisenhauer was quick to add that only those producers who have crop insurance on all their crops would be eligible to receive aid.

If the USDA Secretary does not declare Saunders County a disaster area, there are only two other ways that Saunders County producers might receive aid under the new 2008 program.

The first of these ways would be if a neighboring county were declared a disaster area.

The other would be if a producer were to sustain a loss of more than 50 percent of his yields. However, because of the timing involved, area producers would not be able to receive that aid until October 2009.