Multiple Crop Disasters Declared in 9 States, USVI

UPDATED

Extreme Weather Events destroy crops in 193 U.S. counties

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has designated 30 counties in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma as crop disaster areas in two separate disaster designations due to damages and losses caused by multiple disasters that occurred in 2015.

USDA Kansas Crop Disaster Designation # 1: The following 13 counties in Kansas and Nebraska have been designated as crop disaster areas due to damages and losses caused by drought, winter kill and insect infestation that occurred on Jan. 1, 2015, and continues.

• Kansas: Ellis, Graham, Jewell, Lincoln, Mitchell, Norton, Osborne, Phillips, Rooks, Russell and Smith counties.
• Nebraska: Franklin and Harlan counties.

USDA Kansas Crop Disaster Designation # 2:  The following 17 counties in Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma have been designated as crop disaster areas due to damages and losses caused by tornadoes, excessive rain, high winds, flooding and hail that occurred from April 15, 2015, through July 14, 2015.

• Kansas: Atchison, Brown, Clark, Doniphan, Finney, Ford, Gray, Haskell, Hodgeman, Jackson, Jefferson, Leavenworth, Meade and Seward counties.
• Missouri: Buchanan and Platte counties.
• Oklahoma: Beaver County.

USDA Missouri Crop Disaster Designation

USDA has designated 162 counties in Missouri and the eight surrounding states as crop disaster areas due to damages and losses caused by excessive rainfall and flooding that occurred from March 1, 2015, and continues. Those counties are:

Missouri: Adair, Andrew, Atchison, Audrain, Barry, Barton, Bates, Benton, Bollinger, Boone, Buchanan, Butler, Caldwell, Callaway, Camden, Cape Girardeau, Carroll, Carter, Cass, Cedar, Chariton, Christian, Clark, Clay, Clinton, Cole, Cooper, Crawford, Dade, Dallas, Daviess, DeKalb, Dent, Douglas, Dunklin, Franklin, Gasconade, Gentry, Greene, Grundy, Harrison, Henry, Hickory, Holt, Howard, Iron, Jackson, Jasper, Jefferson, Johnson, Knox, Laclede, Lafayette, Lawrence, Lewis, Lincoln, Linn, Livingston, Macon, Madison, Maries, Marion, McDonald, Mercer, Miller, Mississippi, Moniteau, Monroe, Montgomery, Morgan, New Madrid, Newton, Nodaway, Oregon, Osage, Pemiscot, Perry, Pettis, Phelps, Pike, Platte, Polk, Pulaski, Putnam, Ralls, Randolph, Ray, Reynolds, Ripley, Saline, Schuyler, Scotland, Scott,  Shannon, Shelby, St. Charles, St. Clair, St. Francois, St. Louis, St. Louis City, Ste. Genevieve, Stoddard, Stone, Sullivan, Texas, Vernon, Warren, Washington, Wayne, Webster, Worth and Wright counties.

• Arkansas: Benton, Carroll, Clay, Craighead, Greene, Mississippi, and Randolph counties.
  
• Illinois: Adams, Alexander, Calhoun, Hancock, Jackson, Jersey, Madison, Monroe, Pike, Randolph, St. Clair and Union counties.
• Iowa: Appanoose, Davis, Decatur, Fremont, Lee, Page, Ringgold, Taylor, Van Buren and Wayne counties.
• Kansas: Atchison, Bourbon, Cherokee, Crawford, Doniphan, Johnson, Leavenworth, Linn, Miami and Wyandotte counties.
• Kentucky: Ballard, Carlisle, Fulton and Hickman counties.
• Nebraska: Nemaha, Otoe and Richardson counties.
• Oklahoma: Delaware and Ottawa counties.
• Tennessee: Dryer and Lake counties.

USDA Designates St. Croix County in the U.S. Virgin Islands as a Primary Natural Disaster Area

USDA has also designated St. Croix County in the U.S. Virgin Islands as crop disaster area due to damages and losses caused by drought that occurred on April 1, 2015, and continues.

All of the counties listed above were designated crop disaster areas by USDA on August 26, 2015.

U.S. Drought Monitor – Weekly Comparison: CONUS

Week	None	D0-D4	D1-D4	D2-D4	D3-D4	D4
2015-08-18	54.76	45.24	29.40	18.21	9.41	3.00
2015-08-11	56.13	43.87	28.92	17.87	9.18	3.00

Total U.S.

Week	None	D0-D4	D1-D4	D2-D4	D3-D4	D4
2015-08-18	50.51	49.49	27.92	15.26	7.88	2.51
2015-08-11	51.65	48.35	27.52	14.97	7.69	2.51

Source: http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

Crop Disasters 2015

Beginning January 7, 2015 USDA has declared crop disasters in at least 2,240 counties, county equivalents and municipalities, across 34 States [as well as Puerto Rico, and US Virgin Islands]: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Washington, Wyoming.

About 99 percent of the 2015 crop disaster designations are due to drought so far this year.

Crop Disasters 2014

In 2014, USDA declared crop disasters in at least 2,904 counties across 44 states. Most of the designations were due to drought.

Those states were:

Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan. Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. [FIRE-EARTH has documented all of the above listings. See blog content.]

Notes:
i. USDA trigger point for a countywide disaster declaration is 30 percent crop loss on at least one crop.

ii. The counties designated as agricultural disaster areas, as listed above, include both primary and contiguous disaster areas.

iii. Some counties may have been designated as crop disaster areas more than once due to multiple disasters.

iv. The U.S. has a total of 3,143 counties and county-equivalents.

Related Links

• Drought Destroys More Crops in Florida, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Puerto Rico August 20, 2015
• Extreme Weather Events Destroy Crops in Ten States and Puerto Rico August 13, 2015
• Drought destroys crops in 5 states and Puerto Rico August 6, 2015
• Extreme Weather Events Destroy Crops in 10 States July 30, 2015
• Drought
• Agricultural Disasters Index