Nebraska Cattlemen disaster relief fund tops $1M for wildfire recovery

One of the largest agriculture advocacy groups in the state has raised more than $1.3 million to assist ranchers, farmers and property owners in western and central Nebraska who are starting to pick up the pieces from massive wildfires. Now, the organization is trying to connect with ranchers and farmers who need help rebuilding and replacing what the fires stole.

A handful of wildfires – including the largest in the state’s history at 642,000 acres burned – tore through Nebraska in March as calving season began, a strenuous time for ranchers and farmers who are closely monitoring and caring for pregnant cattle that are laboring and welcoming their calves. In a briefing with the governor’s staff in March, Nebraska’s Department of Agriculture director said the Morrill Fire, if it remained at 600,000 acres, could impact grazing for more than 35,000 cattle.

There haven’t been any widespread, confirmed losses of livestock, but preliminary findings by fire officials show a 200-head flock of sheep died in the Morrill Fire. There have been several ranch owners in western Nebraska who have said they lost several cattle and calves who couldn’t escape from the quickly moving fires.

One of the most significant losses to the fires was miles and miles of grazing pasture land, which cattle, especially pregnant ones, depend on for forage. Craig Uden, president of the Nebraska Cattlemen, said the organization is using the disaster relief fund to help connect farmers with bales of hay in the near term to sustain herds that will be dry lotted – or fed only hay – since setting them out to graze won’t be an option this summer.

Uden said those immediate costs, like providing hay and materials, are quickly rising for ranchers still navigating the sudden steep losses.

“People will still have the expense of – if they own the ground – the taxes and building back of the operation. Or if they had to move them, and they were on a lease, they still have to pay for the lease and still got to feed their cattle, so it’s almost like a double cost,” Uden said.

And while many neighbors, including farmers from surrounding states, are trucking in hay bales, it won’t be enough to feed the hundreds of thousands of cattle that typically roam western and central Nebraska throughout the summer. Uden said a single cow typically eats 35 pounds of hay a day, and for an operation that has 35,000 head of cattle, that can mean going through 300 bales of hay a day.

Another extensive and steep expense will be rebuilding fencelines, which can run anywhere from $14,000 to $20,000 to replace just one mile of four-wire barbed fenceline. Some operations lost forage, fencing and farm structures. Some repairs can wait, but important – and legally required – farm infrastructure such as fenceline, will need to be put back up before cattle can return to pastures when grass starts greening up again.

“But this also comes when it’s been a really nice time in the cattle business, from a profitability standpoint,” Uden said. “And now everything you’ve built over the last 20, 30, 40 – or however many generations – is up in smoke in five minutes.”

Property owners are still waiting to see how much support Nebraska could receive in federal financial assistance, but the state is still waiting for the White House to approve a presidential disaster declaration that could provide a bigger flow of monetary relief. Gov. Jim Pillen said his team is working with President Trump to get the relief process started and approved as quickly as possible.

Uden said he knows the $1 million raised so far by the Nebraska Cattlemen won’t erase all the damage done by the mammoth fires, but the group is trying to support the farmers and ranchers who are still sorting through what to do next.

“We’re not here to make it whole, but we’re trying to fill in some of the holes and try to continue to educate our producers of the different opportunities that maybe they can look forward to, to try to get back to as close to whole as they can,” Uden said. “I think everybody right now is still in the heart of managing through calving season and trying to coordinate and figure out how they’re going to operate from this point forward. We’re trying to figure out the new normal.”

The Nebraska Cattlemen, in conjunction with Omaha TV news station KETV, raised $190,000 to support the disaster relief fund. Uden said the rest of the assistance has come from neighbors and companies pitching in. The organization has received donations from people in all 50 states and even two countries.

“There were some more checks that came in – pretty good-sized checks from community banks," Uden said. "We even had young students that have had some kind of a donation deal, and they’ll send letters and their money. It’s pretty heart-tugging, and it’s been a good way for us to tell the story about our urban counterparts in Nebraska. I don’t know if this would happen everywhere. I think it’s heavily Midwestern flair that we do this.”

Ag organizations outside of Nebraska are also giving back to the recovery fund, Uden said. A lot of states that Nebraska Cattlemen group has assisted throughout the years during their natural disasters are now opening up their pocketbooks for Nebraskans in need.

“We’ve had hay donated from a lot of different states, and we’ve been doing that ourselves with Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas – and now we’re seeing some of that return,” Uden said. “That’s just the kindred spirit of the cattlemen out there, how they help and stay in business, because everybody that’s ever went through some of these challenges understand what people are going through.”

Uden said every dollar given to the disaster relief fund will be donated to cattle owners impacted by the fires. The assistance is open to all cattle producers impacted by the recent Nebraska wildfires, including those who aren’t members of the ag organization. More information on the donation fund and the applications is on the Nebraska Cattlemen’s website.