“Disaster Relief for Maine Farmers”

by

U.S. Representative Tom Allen

1st district of Maine

          This past winter, I watched helplessly as weeks of snowless, frigid weather caused the bare ground in my family’s small apple orchard in Sebago to freeze deeper and deeper.  I knew that the roots of our trees would be badly damaged, and that many young trees would not survive.  On a larger scale, similar scenes unfolded throughout Maine.  After the driest winter in more than a century and one of its coldest, many Maine apple farmers suffered serious losses.  Up to 15 percent of the trees in Maine’s 3,500 acres of apple orchards died and many more were weakened. 

          The Tree Assistance Program (TAP) was created in the 2002 farm bill, and should have been available to help Maine apple farmers through natural disasters such this.  However, no money was appropriated to fund the program.  Something else would have to be done this year to help these growers.

          Severe weather also caused large losses in Maine’s other major crops—blueberries, potatoes and hay.  Blueberry growers saw a 25 percent reduction in yield.  Unusually high rainfalls in August—over 6 inches, more than double what normally falls during our primary harvest month—caused some of the potato crop to rot and prevented potato farmers from spraying to combat the spread of late blight disease.  The wet, late-summer weather pattern likewise damaged Maine’s hay crop.  The damp hay baled during the rainy harvest season was plentiful but significantly inferior in quality.

          In response to these problems, Maine’s other U.S. Representative, Mike Michaud, and I worked to ensure that assistance would be available to Maine’s stricken farmers.  We worked with the leaders of the House Appropriations Committee, the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, and the Agriculture Committee to provide supplemental funding that would help Maine’s apple, blueberry, potato and hay farmers.  We were successful in having these provisions included in an agricultural disaster assistance package that was enacted in early October as part of the Agriculture appropriations bill.  This law is expected to provide, among other things, about $6.5 million to Maine potato farmers, $1.1 million to our blueberry growers, $800,000 to $1 million to Maine apple growers, and $500,000 for hay farmers.  Significantly, the bill provides that farmers may seek assistance for losses suffered either during this growing season or the previous one.  

          Unfortunately, this funding for agricultural disaster assistance will come at the expense of money previously earmarked for a new USDA conservation project just getting underway.  Few, if any, Maine farmers had yet become eligible for the Conservation Security Program.  However, I believe this program is good for small farmers, and particularly good for Maine.  Accordingly, although I am very pleased that I was able to help Maine farmers who suffered serious crop losses this year and last, I will also continue to work to restore funding for valuable conservation programs.