Faced with prolonged and intensifying drought in the northern Plains, USDA opened a still-larger portion of the Conservation Reserve, ordinarily off-limits to farm work, to emergency haying and grazing. In its fourth announcement of permission for landowners to use the idled land for livestock forage, the USDA said haying and grazing would be permitted on wetlands and on buffer strips, often used to protect waterways from farm runoff, that are enrolled in the reserve.
The authorization covers counties in Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota experiencing “severe” drought or worse, and any county within 150 miles of those counties. “This … may extend into Idaho, Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota and Wyoming,” said USDA. The cut-off date for haying in Aug. 31 and for grazing, Sept. 30. “A certain percentage of fields must be left unhayed or ungrazed,” said the USDA.
For the first time, portions of the northern Plains are listed as being in “exceptional” drought this week, the most dire rating of the four categories — moderate, severe, extreme and exceptional — used by the U.S. Drought Monitor. “Reports from the field include … extensive drop damage, livestock water holes drying up, and cattle losing weight due to poor or nonexistent grazing land,” said the weekly Monitor. In North Dakota, the No. 1 spring wheat state, 40 percent of the crop is rated in poor or very poor condition. In Montana, 61 percent is poor or very poor, and in South Dakota 74 percent is poor or very poor.
The National Farmers Union said the forage from the Conservation Reserve would help livestock producers survive. “The conditions in the Great Plains this summer are some of the worst we’ve seen. After a harsh winter, hay was already in short supply and with almost no moisture for months, our members in the upper Great Plains are hurting,” said NFU president Roger Johnson.