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Between the effects of record-breaking rainfall, claiming high levels of prevent plant and continued uncertainty over commodity prices, many of South Dakota’s farmers have become even more stressed than usual over the past year.
However, experts who participated in the South Dakota Farm and Ranch Stress Summit in Oacoma this week said producers’ willingness to talk openly about mental health and stressors is on the upswing, as well.
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In the wettest year on record in the state’s history, an unprecedented number of South Dakota’s farmers have had to rely on prevented planting payments from their crop insurance.
Heather Fillaus, an insurance officer for Farm Credit Services of America, said that between 95 and 98 percent of customers at the insurer’s Mitchell office have claimed prevent plant on at least some of their acreage, although the amount of acreage varies widely from one operation to another. In past years, Fillaus said, it’s been common to see that number under 50 percent.
“We haven’t had a year like 2019 ever before,” Fillaus told The Daily Republic on Thursday. “You talk to some of these 80-year-old farmers, and they say that they’ve never seen a year like this before. … This year, we had guys that farm a vast amount of acres that didn’t get anything planted or that maybe only got a few acres planted, which is very, very outside the norm for around here.”
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In an 87-to-13 vote on Tuesday, the U.S. Senate passed a bill that one of South Dakota’s senators said will provide farmers with certainty and flexibility. On Wednesday, the House passed the bill, sending it to President Trump’s desk.
This is the fourth farm bill to which Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., has contributed. After two years of work on this particular bill and with a House-Senate compromise worked out earlier this month, Thune hopes that the bill will soon be signed into law.
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Historic barns can be found across rural Ohio, and Athens County is no exception. Throughout southeast Ohio, these functional structures serve as reminders of the early European-American settlers and the architectural and agricultural practices they brought with them.
“Every barn is like a book full of stories that can be interpreted the more one learns about it, from the people who built it and the materials used in construction to the uses and changes the barn went through in its time,” said Thomas O’Grady, board member and newsletter editor of the Friends of Ohio Barns, a group dedicated to raising awareness for barns in Ohio.
I recently compiled a spreadsheet of every vote taken by the Ohio House of Representatives in 2015. It was extremely tedious and time-consuming, so hopefully someone else out there who needs this information can benefit from downloading my data set here rather than having to sort through all those session journals themselves.
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A bill aimed at preventing more algae from contaminating water in Lake Erie was passed Wednesday after being considered by the Ohio House for a month.
Senate Bill 1, which would regulate farmers’ use of fertilizer, manure and other substances and practices that have contributed to harmful algal blooms in Lake Erie, is expected to be signed into law by Gov. John Kasich and will go into effect 90 days later.
The bill forbids surface fertilizer application by anyone in the western basin when the ground is covered in snow or when the top two inches of soil are saturated by precipitation. However, there are some exceptions; this is permitted if the manure is injected into the ground or if it is applied to a growing crop.
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