Ag Alert. February 22, 2023

A SPECIAL PRODUCERS’ REPORT OF AG ALERT ® CALIFORNIA Dairy & Livestock ®

Ranches recover, tally losses after ‘relentless storm’ By Nancy Vigran At Van Vleck Ranch in Sacramento County, ranch manager Jerry Spencer stands next to a tree damaged from January storms, which also downed fencing and washed out roads. The ranch’s 2,000 Angus cattle all survived.

While he will try to salvage what he can, he said, “that kind of loss is something you just cannot plan for,” he added. In Auburn, Dan Macon, a University of California livestock and natural resources ad- visor who serves Placer, Nevada, Sutter and Yuba counties, said most cattle ranchers in the Sierra Nevada foothills above Sacramento suffered little to no losses and minor to moderate damage. But he said some sheep and goat ranchers were not so lucky. He measured the storms as dumping 13.83 inches of rain in December and another 13.93 inches in January in a region that averages 32 inches annually. For producers who were lambing or kidding on alfalfa fields in southern Sutter and west- ern Placer counties, Macon said, “the relentless rain and wind created exposure problems for the new kids and lambs, not so much for the ewes and does.” Access to the animals also became an issue. Roads became too wet to allow vehicles to get to the animals or to move them to higher ground. Those conditions made it challenging for the Livestock Pass Program implemented in Nevada, Placer and Yuba counties. Livestock pass programs, authorized under Assembly Bill 1103 in 2021, are intended to allow entry by ranchers for evacuation or checks on livestock during storms, floods, fires or other disasters.

The “bomb cyclone” that hit California in the early days of the New Year brought winds exceeding 50 miles per hour and torrential rains. Van Exel Dairy in Lodi soon found its 500-acre property underwater. For dairy farmer Hank Van Exel, one of the worst immediate challenges was trying to keep most of the 2,200 cows and ca Tyler Ribeiro, of Rib Arrow Dairy in Tulare, lves on the farm bedded down, with the wind blowing sideways under the paddock c overs. The farm kept tractors moving for cleanup for at least six to seven hours nonstop. “It was the most relentless storm I’ve seen in my life,” said Van Exel, who described multiple rain events he endured as “the worst two weeks of my life.” The series of nine atmospheric storms through January affected ranchers and farmers up and down the state. Some producers were hit harder than others, and some in the livestock and dairy business suffered losses while other regions were spared. For Van Exel, the storms and ensuing cleanup and challenges were an ordeal. For start- ers, there was a lack of bedding for the cattle, as the nearby farm where Van Exel gets rice hulls for his calves was also underwater. “The wind, to me, was the worst of it,” he said. It blew the roof off the hay barn and shred tarps on other stacks. “The hay I lost was big.” He said some 500 tons of premium-grade alfalfa, valued at $400 per ton, were lost.

See STORMS, Page 14

February 22, 2023 Ag Alert 13

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