Pawlenty asks for farm emergency declaration in northern counties

By BOB VON STERNBERG, Star Tribune

Last update: September 15, 2009 - 2:47 PM

Gov. Tim Pawlenty has asked federal officials to declare an agricultural disaster in six Minnesota counties that have been deluged by too much water.

During a period when much of the state has withstood drought conditions, farmers in those counties "have experienced significant losses due to excessively wet conditions in 2008 and 2009," Pawlenty wrote in a letter sent today to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

If the disaster is declared, farmers in Kittson, Lake of the Woods, Marshall, Pennington, Roseau, and Koochiching counties would become eligible for low-interest emergency loans from the federal Farm Service Agency.

Starting last fall, the region's soil was saturated by heavy rainfall, which was followed by flooding this spring and unseasonably cool weather, Pawlenty wrote.

As a result, some farmers never even planted this year's crops and losses for corn, soybeans and several other crops exceeded 30 percent, county officials have estimated.