POWELL (WNE) — Early freezes in October greatly damaged the sugar beet and bean crops before they were harvested this year — so much so that local and state officials are asking the U.S. Department of Agriculture to officially declare the poor weather a disaster.
Lawmakers across the Big Horn Basin coordinated to communicate the problem to Gov. Mark Gordon, who requested assistance from the USDA for impacted farmers on Thursday.
“I am writing to you today on behalf of Wyoming producers who are facing extraordinary losses due to unseasonably early and powerful snowstorms,” Gordon wrote, specifically mentioning sugar beet losses.
Last month, Western Sugar Cooperative officially declared it wouldn’t accept the remaining unharvested beets in the Lovell Factory District. This left somewhere between 30 and 35% of this area’s beet crop rotting in the ground.
In his Dec. 5 letter to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, Gordon requested a secretarial disaster designation in Park, Big Horn, Laramie and Goshen counties.
The letter states that the fall of 2019 brought uncommonly low temperatures on Oct. 8 and Oct. 9, which was followed by a second storm on Oct. 13 and Oct. 14. Warmer temperatures separated the freezes, with the thaw and freezing combining to exacerbate the damage to the crops.
The disaster designation is necessary for farmers in those counties to be eligible for monetary assistance for their losses through the Wildfire and Hurricane Indemnity Plus program. The governor expressed his gratitude for the Farm Service Agency county committees’ efforts to pursue assistance through the WHIP+ program.
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