WKBT La Crosse, WI-NewsChannel 8-How the Flood is Affecting Organic Farmers

How the Flood is Affecting Organic Farmers

Organic Farmers, like others who work in the agriculture business, make their living in the soil; but when that soil is covered with flood water, organic farms have big problems.  "It's already been a cold, late spring and with this damage on top of it we're definitely looking at significant economic damage to our crops," says Joe Pedretti, Farmer Outreach Manager for Organic Valley.
    
Organic Valley in La Farge is a cooperative with more than 500 organic farms in Wisconsin supporting it.  For some of their farmers a big part of their business is harvesting and selling during the late spring and early summer.  "The flood just brought in a lot of silt and buried plants, so the biggest problem right now is that is just buried a bunch of plants that we needed...right now," says Driftless Organics Co-Owner Noah Engel.
    
Organic farmers are busy re-planting seeds in hopes that they can still have food to harvest this fall.  In the mean time consumers can help organic farmers by buying what they can, locally. "We just encourage people to go out and buy local products, because we're committed to selling them and producing them around here and having them available, and I'd like to see more people support the local economy in general," Engel added.

Organic Valley has set up a relief fund to help flood-stricken farmers in our area, if you would like to help you can contact Organic Valley at 1-888-444-6455.