GRANITE FALLS -- A federal disaster declaration will make farmers in 56 Minnesota counties eligible for assistance due to the summer's drought, but Yellow Medicine County is not among them.
The Yellow Medicine County Board of Commissioners decided Tuesday that it will ask that the county be added to the list of eligible counties.
Like an island in the sea, Yellow Medicine County stands alone as one of the few agricultural counties in the state's western and central farmlands that are not listed as eligible for disaster aid. The federal government designated 24 counties as disaster areas, but the action also made the adjacent 32 counties eligible for the aid.
All of the counties surrounding Yellow Medicine County are eligible for the aid by virtue of being adjacent to counties where the drought damage met the threshold to qualify.
"We are geographically unlucky,'' said County Administrator Ryan Krosch to describe the dilemma.
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Commissioner Jane Remiger, Wood Lake, said the Farm Service Agency agent who surveyed Yellow Medicine County determined that the drought will lower yields by about 11 percent, far short of the 30 percent damage required for a disaster declaration.
But the commissioners noted that the 11 percent damage assessment is misleading. The drought conditions were experienced on the eastern end of the county. There are almost certainly going to be farms on the eastern end of the county where yields will be reduced by 30 percent.
In contrast, farmers west of Clarkfield enjoyed timely rains and are hopeful of harvesting bumper crops this year.
That east-west split may average out to good yields, but that does little to help the drought-hit farmers on the eastern end of the county, the commissioners said.
"Droughts don't stop at county boundaries,'' said Commissioner Gary Johnson, Clarkfield.
