Area producers talk drought, derecho at Monday commission meeting

A large group of area producers attended the Carter County Commission meeting on Monday in Ekalaka to explain to the commissioners the current drought situation they are facing. In addition to drought, producers at the meeting spoke about how grasshoppers have devastated crops and pastures this year, and also how the storm event on July 13th that swept through the area caused severe damage to not only their homes and outbuildings, but also to crops and rangeland.

Many have referred to the July 13th storm as a derecho. A derecho is a widespread, long-lived wind storm associated with bands of rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms variously known as bow echoes, squall lines, or quasi-linear convective systems. The storms are widespread, long-lived, and straight-lined.

One producer on Monday explained to the commission that the storm broke dry grass - grass that had already been devastated by grasshoppers and drought - and blew it up against his fences, similar to what it might look like following a flood event, but worse.

Local FSA representatives say that the area is currently in extreme drought. The U.S. drought monitor classification for that is "D3." Some examples of historically observed impacts in a D3 drought include agriculture and local businesses facing economic loss, cattle having very little water, water quality becoming toxic, crops not being harvestable, opening winter pastures for grazing, and producers hauling water and buying expensive supplements early. Additionally, soils often show large cracks and many fields are bare.

USDA does offer a variety of programs to help farmers, ranchers, communities, and businesses that have been hard hit by natural disaster events. Some of these FSA programs include the Livestock Forage Disaster Program, Livestock Indemnity Program, Emergency Livestock Relief Program, Emergency Loan Program, Emergency Conservation Program, Noninsured Disaster Assistance Program and others. But the producers at Monday's meeting worry that these programs aren't suited to them, though, or that those programs won't be enough to cover the substantial losses they are facing.

Following Monday's meeting the Carter County Commission sent the following letter to the Eagle:

"The Board of County Commissioners has been approached by several producers in the county regarding the drought conditions in Carter County. Producers contend that the current status of conditions has manifested since 2017 reporting not only drought, the grasshopper infestations, dried out reservoirs and poor water quality as well as the high wind weather event that devastated the area on July 13, 2024. We are encouraging anyone affected by these poor conditions to Use the Condition Monitoring Observer Report (CMOR) system to alert the Farm Service Agency of the need for a Disaster Declaration.

The US Drought Monitor is produced through a partnership between the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the United States Department of Agriculture and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The QR Code can be scanned and the Montana Drought Impact Report can be submitted that way, or producers may complete the survey by logging into https://survey123.arcgis.com/share/850f937a1956425dab70cf3a79c64e8b."