Dairy farmer Doug Turner got a glimmer of help on an overcast and sodden morning Wednesday, one month and a day after Tropical Storm Irene roared through Vermont, wasting hundreds of farm fields, including parts of his 107-acre tract along the Mad River in Waitsfield.
With rain splattering on the hay barn roof and second-cut bales as the backdrop, Turner gratefully accepted a check for $10,000 from Gov. Peter Shumlin, a portion of the money that has been collected for farmers by the Vermont Community Foundation, one of the state’s major philanthropic organizations.
“This money is not going to restore the Turner’s farm to its pre-Irene state, but it will help the Turners with some of their immediate expenses,”Shumlin told reporters at a press conference.
“There has been extensive damage to farms in many part of the state, and these grants will help farmers make ends meet while they await federal and other assistance.”
Shumlin said that a batch of checks will be sent Thursday to 52 other Vermont farmers. The checks will range from $2,500 to $10,000.
Farmers don’t need more debt.”
– Gov. Peter Shumlin
The grants can be used to replace infrastructure or livestock, or to buy seed, feed or equipment that was lost thanks to Irene. To be eligible, farms had to commit to remaining in business and had to have gross annual sales of $20,000 or more, or be a small start-up operation that could demonstrate potential for growth. (Friday is the deadline for farmers to apply for a second round of assistance.)
Turner, dressed in work clothes, told reporters the money would be his down payment on repairs to the stream banks along his property. His home on Route 100 borders the river and Sheppard’s Brook. The raging river and stream covered parts of his fields for several hours with 6 to 10 feet of water.
The flooding left silty and sandy debris that was later consumed by some of his 90 Holsteins, 18 of which came down with udder infections, and three of which had to be destroyed. He lost hay and corn and spent 400 hours clearing debris.
Worse, the river and stream banks were left eroded to such an extent that his farmland is now highly vulnerable to more flooding during typical high-water periods of spring.
“We have 2,000 to 2,200 linear feet of stream bank damage,”he said in an interview after the press conference.“It has to be graded and rip-rapped, or we will lose 30 acres in any normal flood.”
Turner said he has received bids totaling $110,000 for field and stream-bank repairs. He said he faces an additional $40,000 in other flood losses.
Flanking Shumlin and Turner at the press conference were state Agriculture Secretary Chuck Ross, whose agency helped advise the foundation with its funding effort; and Stuart Comstock-Gay, the president and CEO of the foundation.
Ross spoke to the “grace and resilience”of Vermont’s farmers, 438 of whom have reported losses to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Services Agency, which will soon be offering low-interest disaster-relief loans to farmers. “I haven’t met a farmer yet who says he’s giving up,”said Ross.
As a black farm cat with white paws wondered across the feet of reporters, Comstock-Gay announced that the Middlebury-based foundation has received roughly $1.2 million in donations. The money came in various increments, from $5 to hundreds of thousands of dollars, he said. Comstock-Gay said donations came from myriad sources, from organic farm groups in California to benefactors in New York City.
Comstock-Gay said later that he hopes the foundation can continue working on what the state has described as a $10 million-plus problem.
“If we could distribute between $1 million and $2 million more, then we feel we would make significant dent in the problem,”he said.
What farmers need now, Comstock-Gay said, is cash.
“The problem is broad and deep, and there are farmers who can take advantage of loans, but there are many who may not wish to,”he said. “Many are already highly leveraged, so it will be tough to take on even low-interest loans.”
Shumlin gave a quick rundown on the grants and loans that are expected to become available through the Farm Service Agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. (Just this week all of Vermont’s counties received the federal disaster declaration necessary for farmers to receive assistance from the Farm Services Agency.
But Shumlin, too, emphasized: “Farmers don’t need more debt.”
Comstock-Gay said the application process for loans or grants can present its own set of problems. Many farmers are still cleaning up their flood mess, and now they have to fill out the paperwork or find time to inspect their buildings and fields with a government official charged with helping to approve a loan.
As a result of that challenge, Comstock-Gay said, the foundation is trying to streamline the granting process.
Since Irene’s flooding, all kinds of funds have been established in Vermont to help farmers, and dairyman Turner says he has applied for help from several of them. He also said he is setting up a website to describe the farm’s history, what it has done for the community and its needs.
“I will take money from anyone who will give it to us without strings attached,”he said, before taking a group of reporters on a hike to check out bank erosion.
Dirk Van Susteren of Calais is a freelance reporter and editor.
