Tornadoes damage Ohio farms and agribusinesses

Nov 08, 2017

National Weather Service confirms nine tornadoes touched down in the state

By Diego Flammini
News Reporter
Farms.com

Ohio farmers and agribusiness owners are assessing damages after nine tornadoes made landfall on Sunday.

In Mercer County, an EF-2 tornado swept through a sixth-generation family farm. Within minutes, it destroyed a 130-year old barn and killed cattle.

“(My daughter Amber) called back six minutes (after I told her to get into the basement) and said ‘everything is gone,’” Bob Diller told Fox 45 yesterday.

Drone footage of the farm shows equipment buried under piles of debris.

But nobody on the farm was injured and that’s what’s important, Diller said.

“We can replace buildings,” he told Fox 45. “The family is good.”

Mercer County farmers also helped local dairy producers rescue a trapped herd.

More than 40 neighbors arrived at Schaefer Dairy Farm to help almost 400 cows escape from a collapsed barn.

And the family is thankful for their friends.

“In Mercer County, everybody works together,” Judy Schaefer told WHIO-TV yesterday. “Thanks (to) everybody that’s helping us out.”

The Schaefers lost about 30 cows during the storm.

In Ashland County, customers alerted an agribusiness owner that the roof of her building had blown off during the storm.

Kelsey Keener owns Nova Farmer’s Supply, a feed and seed dealer in Nova, OH.

When she pulled up to her business, the feed storage area’s roof was missing. Another torage building was missing its roof and parts of its walls.

“(The damage wasn’t) as bad as it could have been,” Keener told the Times-Gazette yesterday.

A total of 13 tornadoes touched down during the storm between Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania, according to the National Weather Service.

Top photo: A tornado damaged a farm in Mercer County
Photo: Auglaize County EMA/Facebook

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.