State grants help local farmers stricken by severe weather

Harry Childs grows vegetables at Brown Paper Bag Harry’s Farm in Franklin. The farm received money from the state’s Production Loss Assistance Needed Today agriculture grant program, which aids farmers whose operations have been affected by severe weather. Childs plans to improve the drainage throughout the field behind him, which flooded last spring.

By Ryan Blessing
rblessing@norwichbulletin.com
(860) 425-4205 
Posted Dec. 1, 2013 @ 6:06 pm 

FRANKLIN — Like other farmers whose land and crops were battered by severe weather earlier this year, Harry Childs is grateful for a state effort to help him get back on his feet.

“It’s a godsend,” said Childs, who owns the 20-acre Brown Paper Bag Harry’s farm in Franklin.

The state’s Production Loss Assistance Needed Today, or PLANT, grant program is helping Connecticut farms recover from this year’s storms and flooding, which damaged crops, buildings and equipment.

Childs, who grows vegetables, plans to use the funds to improve drainage on the property. Last spring, heavy rain led an underground spring below his fields to flood, severely damaging his crops.

“We’re putting in new drainage pipes,” Childs said.

Last month, the state Department of Agriculture approved 239 PLANT grants totaling $4,922,280.

Fifty farms in nine Windham County communities and 10 New London County towns received funding.

The agriculture department began distributing approved awards on Oct. 31 and has since delivered 90 percent of the emergency assistance to recipients, according to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s office.

Malloy established the PLANT grant program in June after touring flooded farms in the Connecticut River Valley.

Grant recipients may use the assistance to repair damaged property and equipment, replant lost crops, plant new or different crops in place of lost crops, buy feed to supplement lost hay, corn, and other crops for livestock and apply fertilizer and other soil care measures, as well as products to prevent disease and pest outbreaks.

“Severe weather events — the kind that were seemingly unheard-of in Connecticut when I was growing up — have become the new normal,” Department of Agriculture Commissioner Steven Reviczky said. “These grants are helping farm businesses not only recover today, but also strengthen agricultural infrastructure to better weather tomorrow’s tornados, hurricanes and blizzards when — not if — they occur.”

Peter Orr, owner of Fort Hill Farms in Thompson, said the PLANT grant program underscores the importance of agriculture to the state’s economy and aids in keeping the industry viable for the future.

“I appreciate the initiative that Gov. Malloy has taken to recognize the severity of the weather impacts on agriculture over the past year,” Orr said.

Grant applications were reviewed, approved and processed through a partnership between the state departments of Agriculture and Community and Economic Development, with additional administrative assistance from the Connecticut Farm Bureau Association.

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