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Cooperative leader urges farms, businesses to document weather impact

A dairy cooperative leader is urging farmers and ag-related businesses to document the damage from weather-related events.

Tim Trotter with the Dairy Business Association and Edge Dairy Farmer Cooperative says, “It’s important to have pictures, photos, any kind of documentation you can do.”

Trotter tells Brownfield that whenever severe weather causes damage, good records of that damage can help when dealing with insurance companies, markets, and government disaster programs.  He says farmers should also report damage to county and state Emergency Management offices and the Farm Service Agency. “Just let them know because if we have a lot of them calling in and providing data and information, that might help bring some type of relief in some form to our farmers who are going to be at risk financially because of this.”

Trotter says the weekend blizzard, impacting parts of Iowa, Minnesota, and nearly all of Wisconsin, made roads impassable, forcing some dairy producers to dump milk. “Several farms have reached out to us regarding dumping milk. It’s a fair amount of milk but yet, you know, it was maybe a load or two here or there for some of the larger farms but any money lost right now is not acceptable for a dairy farmers with margins so tight.”

Trotter expects damage reports from the weekend blizzard to come in slowly, as farmers remove snow, clean up damage, and keep up with their daily tasks while managing insurance claims and repairs.

AUDIO: Tim Trotter discusses the importance of documenting and photographing storm damage and reporting damage to certain agencies with Brownfield’s Larry Lee.