Early freeze dealt significant losses to local bean growers

FSA leader told commissioners the damage did not qualify as a disaster, but data suggests otherwise

Posted 12/3/20

A Labor Day freeze destroyed or damaged nearly a third of Park County’s bean crop, according to data presented to county commissioners last month.

The head of the county’s Farm Service …

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Early freeze dealt significant losses to local bean growers

FSA leader told commissioners the damage did not qualify as a disaster, but data suggests otherwise

Posted

A Labor Day freeze destroyed or damaged nearly a third of Park County’s bean crop, according to data presented to county commissioners last month.

The head of the county’s Farm Service Agency office told commissioners that the losses were not extensive enough to qualify for a disaster declaration, but a Tribune review of the data indicates it actually may have met the federal agency’s threshold. The FSA did not respond to repeated inquiries about the data.

Out of roughly 5,960 acres of black, navy, great northern, pinto, kidney and yellow beans planted across the county for Treasure Valley Seed Company and ADM, 1,871 acres — or more than 31% — were reportedly impacted by the wintry conditions that hit the area in early September. The two companies provided the figures to Park County Farm Service Agency Executive Director Darla Rhodes, who in turn provided them to commissioners.

“There are some varieties that took a bigger loss than others,” Rhodes noted at the commission’s Nov. 4 meeting. For instance, more than 60% of the roughly 1,200 acres of yellow beans were damaged or destroyed, while 545 acres of navy beans reportedly emerged unscathed.

A few other Park County bean producers grow for Kelley Bean Company, which has a location in Manderson, but Rhodes said she hadn’t received data from that business.

She told commissioners that a couple bean growers in the Powell area had urged her to seek a formal disaster declaration in connection with the freeze. Those declarations make farmers eligible for low-interest emergency loans through the Farm Service Agency, an arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

However, local growers are already eligible for the emergency loans, because  drought-related disasters have been declared in three adjoining counties: Big Horn County, Wyoming, Big Horn County, Montana and Carbon County, Montana.

Rhodes had discouraged Park County commissioners from requesting a disaster declaration from the USDA. Not only is the declaration unnecessary, but she said there wasn’t enough damage to the bean crop to qualify as a disaster.

“I’ve got to tell you, if you’re trying to sell us [on a disaster declaration], you’re not doing a very good job,” Commission Chairman Joe Tilden told Rhodes.

“I’m confused: What are you doing here?” added Commissioner Joe Fulkerson. “You’re asking us to consider this declaration, but it doesn’t meet your own standards.”

Rhodes explained that she’d only asked commissioners to consider a declaration because one local producer “is so adamant that I were to come here, and my state office said, ‘just go do it, just get it out of the way so that you can prove that you’ve done it.’”

She later apologized for having to come before the board said she felt like she was “wasting your guys’ time.”

According to USDA guidelines, a disaster declaration generally requires a 30% production loss in at least one crop. By Rhodes’ calculations, the local bean losses came to 21.3%, falling short of the minimum threshold.

Noting that yellow bean producers suffered bigger losses, Commissioner Lloyd Thiel asked whether the board could still try requesting a disaster declaration.

“If we can help one producer out there, or three, because he’s at 60% loss, it’s no cost out of us, all we’re doing is allowing her [Rhodes] to move forward,” Thiel suggested.

“You guys can decide either way, and then I can request it,” Rhodes said. “But because this percentage number is not 30%, it’s not going to go anywhere.”

Thiel wondered if there were any drawbacks to making a request, but Tilden contended that “the downside is … it could potentially be embarrassing to us.”

“That’s my opinion,” he said, “because we’ve already been shown that it doesn’t basically break the threshold of what’s considered disaster relief in Park County.”

However, a Tribune review of the data indicates that the losses met the USDA’s threshold. Rhodes’ figure of 21.3% averaged the losses by variety rather than by acreage. So, for example, the 88 acres of kidney beans — where no losses were reported — were given the same weight as the 2,805 acres of pinto beans, where 32.8% of the crop was lost or damaged. When the losses are instead calculated by total acreage, 31.4% of the local bean crop was impacted.

Over a period of three weeks, Rhodes did not respond to phone and email messages asking about her calculations.

Other area crops were damaged by the freezing Labor Day temperatures as well, but it was bean and sugar beet growers who suffered the brunt of the impact, she told commissioners last month. Cold temperatures also damaged local beets in October, making for a difficult harvest, “but we managed through it in good shape,” Western Sugar Cooperative Board Member Ric Rodriguez said last month.

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