Oregon Wildfires Cost Farmers up to $12 Million in Burned Wheat

Oregon Wildfires Cost Farmers up to $12 Million in Burned Wheat

Russell Nemetz
Russell Nemetz
It's still unclear how much wheat burned in recent wildfires in Oregon, but the Oregon Wheat Commission estimates between one and two million bushels. Priced roughly at $6 a bushel, the losses add up quickly.

Blake Rowe is the CEO of the Oregon Wheat League and Oregon Wheat Commission and I talked with him about these recent wildfires, most notably the Substation fire at The Dalles.

"Even with just the one fire estimate that we have it's it's significant loss and of course it's all over the boards and terms of impact to individual farmers" said Rowe. "Some have lost their whole crop while some lost parts of fields, there's been several homes burned and in the Substation fire there was farm equipment lost. We just don't have a good overall tally of what the impact has been. It will be big and there will be a lot of insurance claims filed trying to get to get farmers as whole as we can make them."

He says the fires could end up costing farmers between $6 million and $12 million in lost product alone.

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