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Great Lakes ag groups request forage help

The state Farm Bureaus in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin along with Dairy Farmers of America, Michigan Cattlemen’s Association and Michigan Milk Producers Association are asking USDA for emergency provisions to address feed and forage shortages.

“This is one of those years where we’ve never experienced anything like this before.”     

Ernie Birchmeier with Michigan Farm Bureau tells Brownfield hay shortages are commonplace across the country and the unprecedented wet spring has long-term implications.

“The extreme rain conditions and the nonstop have not allowed farmers to get in and harvest what forage is there.”       

More than 80 percent of alfalfa in Wisconsin is estimated to have significant winter-kill damage and several Midwestern states have similar conditions.

Birchmeier says that, along with record-breaking rainfall and delayed corn planting, could soon put some farmers in a position to sell their cows if emergency provisions aren’t available.

The groups are asking for a one-time allowance to plant and harvest forages on prevented plant acres without date restrictions and emergency harvesting on conservation lands.