OCTOBER 2008: AROUND THE STATE
Eastern
dry-land wheat farmers ask for relief
EASTERN OREGON
Farm revenues may be soaring statewide, but not all farmers are
raking it in this year. Dry-land wheat farmers in arid Gilliam
and Morrow counties are applying for federal assistance, saying
an after-the-fact “extreme weather emergency”
caused the harvest to come in thinner than expected. Gilliam
County Judge Pat Shaw, who voted in favor of a resolution to
pursue disaster relief Sept. 3, says extreme temperature swings
and a lack of rainfall during the growing season decreased
yield by 30%-50%. Farmers didn’t know the crop was
damaged before harvest, thus the six-month lag between the
disaster and the requested declaration.
“Most disasters are pretty apparent,” Shaw says.
“This one was not.”
When it comes to non-irrigated wheat farming in dry counties,
disaster declarations are not rare. “I can’t think
of a year when there hasn’t been at least one county
asking for a declaration,” says Oregon Department of
Agriculture spokesman Bruce Pokarney.
A disaster declaration must go through the governor’s
office and be approved by the federal government. It can help
farmers obtain no-interest or low-interest loans to cover their
losses.
Gilliam and Morrow counties saw their agricultural sales jump
by 32% and 22% respectively in 2007, mostly on the strength of
rising wheat prices. Some farmers planted more acreage in wheat
to cash in on the prices, but the weather did not
cooperate.
It has been a high-stakes harvest for many Oregon farmers, with
fat crop prices balanced against painfully rising costs for
fuel and fertilizer. But on balance things are looking up. New
research from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s
Economic Research Service finds that profits in farming have
never been bigger. The research pegged 2007 net farm income in
Oregon at $1.48 billion, a 50% increase from the previous year.
That figure is expected to shoot up even higher this year, due
partly to the cultivation of 150,000 additional acres statewide
for
wheat.
BEN JACKLET
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