$336 million – That’s the preliminary estimate of January ag losses to one California county following a series of atmospheric river storms. Those storms have caused damage to agriculture in Tulare, Monterey and Humboldt counties. The executive director of the Monterey County Farm Bureau says this month’s damages from more storms just in his county could top that January number.
And the waters keep rising, forcing some dairy farmers in Tulare County California to move their operations to higher ground. AgDay affiliate KMPH-TV talked to farmers in the area. They report that six days ago, a levee broke on the Tule River five miles upstream from Nick Koot’s dairy farm in Tulare. He thought it was too far away to impact his dairy.
“Come Thursday, this whole place was under water,” Koot says. “I was worried the cows were going to drown, so we made the decision to get a bunch of trucks from friends and family and we were able to haul the cows off.”
Koot’s says it took two days to move 1,200 cows to his father-in-law’s, his cousin’s and another place that takes farm animals.
Flooding at the Medonza Dairy in Tulare forced them to evacuate the herd.
“We had to evacuate about 1,000 head that were on the lower part of the dairy,” says Alvin Medonza, owner of Medonza Dairy. “We did that by having a bunch of trailers come in and we took them to our neighbors who were up on higher ground.”
Dairymen grow various crops to feed their cows, and right now these two dairy farmers say the situation doesn’t look good.
“Our crops of wheat right now – some of them might survive. The ones that took the blunt of the water where it was basically a river running right through it [won’t likely make it],” Medonza says.
Koot agrees, adding, “If these fields don’t yield of if they all die, I’m going to have trouble feeding my cows in the future. So, I don’t know if I’m going to restart [my farm] up or call it quits and cut my losses.”
The Tulare County Farm Bureau is currently connecting the ag community with information and resources.
“Many dairies have had their feed damaged, so there is a variety of challenges with replacing silage and getting alfalfa onto the replacement locations,” says Tricia Stever-Blattler, Executive Director for Tulare County Farm Bureau.
Moving cows to higher ground has been priority number one for Koot and Medonza. They say when the storms pass, they’ll size up their losses and see how they overcome the flood of 2023.
KMPH-TV “Dairy farmers in Tulare County move herds to higher ground to escape flooding”
