News

Winter weather taking toll on Minnesota farmers

More than 30 livestock buildings in Minnesota have been damaged or destroyed by snow in recent weeks.

Minnesota Milk executive director Lucas Sjostrum tells Brownfield the state has verified 35 individual farms have been affected by some sort of roof collapse this winter.

“I think 33 of them are dairy barns, or free-stall barns of some sort. There’s a couple other calf barns and one holding pen that (also) went down.”

He says five of those collapses happened in the past 48 hours, but the majority occurred following a snowstorm two weeks ago.

“And the scary thing is that a lot of the calls or stats came in four or five days after the snow came, so it took some time to lay down into heavy spots and then collapse.”

Sjostrum says one farm lost half of its 90 cows, but in most cases the loss of livestock is closer to 10 percent. For producers impacted by the snow, he recommends contacting the Farm Service Agency to find out about possible disaster assistance.