Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig has updated estimates of potential crop damage caused by the August 10 derecho. The USDA Risk Management Agency (RMA) raised the damage are to 14 million acres based onreports 57 counties in Iowa were in the path of the storm. This includes 8.2 million acres of corn and 5.6 million acres of soybeans that may have been impacted by the storm.
However, using satellite imagery and storm reports, Naig says his department believes 36 counties in Iowa were hardest hit by the derecho accounting for 3.57 million acres of corn and 2.5 million acres of soybeans.
However, Naig says it’s too early to estimate the total crop loss in hundreds of dollars and farmers won’t know until harvest.
Naig says the derecho stacks up as one of the worst storm events in the state’s history
.
