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Donnelly surveys flood damaged crops

Indiana Senator Joe Donnelly spent Monday morning surveying crop damage from June’s excessive rainfall.

During his stop at Rusty and Jeannette Merritt’s farm in north central Indiana Senator Donnelly said the damages are wide spread.  “We’re going to continue to focus on this and we have crop insurance in place through the Farm Bill,” he says.  “This is a serious, serious problem.  We’re probably looking at half of what we get (yield) in a normal year.  We’re hoping the fields dry out even more – but this is something where the damage has already been done.”

Senator Joe Donnelly, Indiana

Rusty Merritt says there are a lot of lost acres this year.  “There is some – not a lot – of prevented plant right now,” he says.  “There are some guys who are planting beans are still trying to get them in the ground.  But it’s getting to that magical date where it’s getting to late to do that.”

He tells Brownfield without crop insurance farming next year might not be an option.  “We use the crop insurance to safe guard – so in years like this when we don’t have a crop that’s not where it should be – to allow us to at least break even,” he says.  “So we can continue to be able to farm another year.”

Since Memorial Day Merritt Farms has had over 34” inches of rain.

Rusty and Jeannette Merritt, Peru, Ind.