Farmers Reeling After Storm Rips Through Millions of Acres of Crops

By Dana Cronin

Midwestern farmers are beginning to assess crop damage after a high-wind storm, known as a derecho, ripped through the region Monday. Iowa and Illinois were two of the hardest hit states, with tens of millions of acres of crops impacted and reports of widespread infrastructure damage.

“It’s by far the most extensive and widespread damage that we’ve seen on this farm,” says Aaron Lehman, who grows corn and soybeans in Polk County in central Iowa, and is the President of the Iowa Farmers Union. His neighbors, who he says have been farming longer than he has, have never seen anything like it.

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds announced a state of emergency in 20 counties on Tuesday, and the Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig called the damage “significant” and “severe.”

According to Lehman, in some ways, the storm did more damage than a tornado.