News

USDA declares another drought disaster across several states

The USDA FSA has declared a federal emergency in several counties in Ohio and Kentucky due to extreme drought conditions.

Southern Ohio farmer Greg Corcoran says the drought triggered an early harvest.

“We’re probably about 3 weeks ahead of schedule, so we hit it pretty hard, caught about as much as we could harvest,” he says. “We were focusing on corn that was ready and then turned around and did as many beans as we could.”

He tells Brownfield recent rains from Hurricane Helene caused more concern.

“We lost a lot of trees, had a lot of down corn, saw some barns blow over, just a lot of damage,” he says. “I’m seeing goose neck on the corn seeing corn that’s flat. We had 5 inches in 24 hours, so a lot of flash flooding, some things that we haven’t seen in a long time.”

The USDA says counties that qualify for federal aide have had eight or more consecutive weeks of little to no precipitation.

For more information contact your local FSA office. 

The Kentucky counties affected include:
Boyd, Carter, Greenup, and Lawrence.

Contiguous counties also eligible include:
Kentucky – Elliott, Johnson, Lewis, Martin, Morgan, and Rowan Counties.

Ohio – Lawrence and Scioto Counties.