Texas tornadoes damage farm in Canton

May 01, 2017

Nearby states experienced flooding due to the storms

By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com

A farm and family amusement park in Canton, Texas was heavily damaged by tornadoes that swept through the area on Saturday.

Yesterland Farm, a 32-acre agritourism farm, is sorting through rubble after the storms. The farm grows pumpkins and Christmas trees, and provides family fun with corn mazes and farm animals.

“We had grandstands that were 10 rows high and now they’re at the far end of our super slide, several hundred feet away,” Kama Bozeman, co-owner of Yesterland, told KLTV.

A total of four tornadoes touched down in Texas on April 29.

Two were rated an EF-0 (wind speeds between 65 and 85 mph) by the National Weather Service. Another two were rated an EF-3 (wind speeds between 136 and 165 mph).

KLTV.com - Tyler, Longview, Jacksonville |ETX News

Three of the four tornadoes traveled through Canton. And Bozeman knows the damage could’ve been much worse.

“So many (people) had total devastation,” she told KLTV. “You know, this is just nothing compared to what those people are dealing with.”

Yesterland is still on schedule to open in late September, Bozeman told KLTV.

The storms in Texas caused flash flooding in Missouri, Mississippi and Arkansas, where farmers may have to replant corn due to the torrential rains.

“I’d say we could have 20 (to) 30 percent of our planted acreage that could need to be replanted if water stays on too long,” Matthew Davis, a Jackson County extension agent, said in a May 1 statement.

A flooded corn field in Arkansas.
Photo: University of Arkansas.

Most crops can handle up to 24 hours of standing water, Keith Perkins, Lonoke County extension staff chair for the Division of Agriculture, said in the statement. So, farmers don’t have to replant right away.

“(Farmers) shouldn’t be in a hurry to make any rash decisions. We are still early enough to replant and not suffer any yield loss on replants,” he said in a statement.

“All we can do is evaluate the stands once the water recedes.”.

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.