Senator Welch Tours Drought-Impacted Farm in Orwell, Discusses Path to Disaster Aid

Oct 20, 2025

U.S. Senator Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Ranking Member of the Senate Agriculture Subcommittee on Rural Development, Energy, and Credit, joined Vermont farmers, state officials, and the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont (NOFA-VT) at Lazy Dog Farm in Orwell to hear from farmers impacted by one of Vermont’s harshest droughts. Senator Welch heard from farmers about how the historic drought has impacted soil, crop yields, farmers’ livelihoods, and efforts to mitigate the impacts of extreme weather.

As the growing season in Vermont ends, farms across the state are facing the driest August on record, with nearly 94% of the state experiencing a severe drought. The most recent National Integrated Drought Information System map shows almost 24% of Vermont is experiencing extreme drought, and nearly 70% of the state is experiencing severe drought.

“No one works harder than our farmers, and their work is made more challenging as a result of extreme weather. After this brutal drought, farms like Lazy Dog are finding new solutions to keep farming day in and day out. Vermont farmers should be able to depend on the federal government to lend a hand when extreme weather hits, and while a disaster declaration from USDA won’t solve all of farmers’ problems, it will go a long way toward helping them recover,” said Senator Welch. “I’ll keep pushing for vital disaster aid to repair lives and livelihoods in Orwell and across Vermont.”

Senator Welch recently joined the Vermont Congressional Delegation in calling on the Trump Administration to help drought-impacted Vermont farmers access urgently-needed disaster assistance. The Delegation recently called on USDA to issue a Secretarial Disaster Designation for the entire State of Vermont due to the mounting impacts of the pervasive and severe drought that has struck the state in recent weeks.

Source : senate.gov

Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators