Flooded Farmers

Losing your business, your job, your livelihood...all to the river. Ag Reporter Sarah Gustin was there and shares the story of one producer's stuggle of ranching on the water. 20 years of farming and ranching along the Missouri, but this year there won't be a bale made or crop harvested on these acres. (Neil Effertz / Rancher) "It's basically all our winter feed production. It's about 250 acres that is either underwater or inaccessible because it might be a little island of land that you can't get to because you have to drive through 4 feet of water to get to it." Neil Effertz ranches north of Bismarck. A yard that once sat by the river, now sits in the water. (Neil Effertz / Rancher) "You can't get to my feedlot. Our feed handling system has floor augers those are all under water. we have a floor auger coing out of our big grain bin where we put our corn, that's all underwater and of course there is grain in there and those augers are full of grain, and they are saturated. I don't know what kinda devastation, but to rehabiliate that system it's probably going to cost 50-100 thousand dollars just to fix it all up." (Sarah Gustin / sgustin@kxnet.com) "Roads that were once driven on are now paddled across. This canoe is the latest form of transportation for Effertz to get and from his feeding area. He says in some areas you can't even touch the bottom with a paddle." (Neil Effertz / Rancher) "You can see the alfalfa just waving underneath, like seaweed. Buddies from town are coming out and fishing in our alfalfa fields all the time." He worries where to winter his cows, where to make hay and where to store feed...more

If you haven't yet, please read The Purposeful Flooding of America's Heartland.