Flood Damage on the Farm
Donation protected
Myself (Zach) and my beautiful wife, Jenny first started Dittmar Family Farms in 2016 in our back yard at the end of a cul-de-sac where we began to pursue the American dream.
Overcoming many obstacles we continued to grow our small farm operation and we purchased our present 40 acre farm in September 2017 in Felton, Delaware. As regenerative farmers, we practice minimal till, living root in soil as much as possible, utilizing biodiversity, soil armor and animal integration.
When we purchased this farm, we inquired about farm insurance from Nationwide (not enough experience), USAA (won’t cover floods because of our geographic location being too close to the coast), Family Farm Insurance (not large enough), USDA Farm Service Agency offered a catastrophic crop loss which had enormous requirements that made it near impossible for us to utilize (it is designed for an industrial farmer not for a market gardener with several different crops on limited acreage), and with a brokerage who came back with nothing for us.
Basically farm insurance is geared towards large scale, industrial farms and not farmers like us who provide CSA shares and a variety of market crops.
It has always been part of the Dittmar’s mission to be a positive role in our community. We do this by bringing underserved children onto the farm for opportunities to observe natural principles and to learn new skills, we donate to local food pantries and families in need and we seek to fulfill our main mission of providing healthy sustainably grown food, and to improve the environment by implementing true regenerative farm practices.
We grow approximately two acres of vegetables (tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, a variety of greens, broccoli, potatoes, carrots, radishes, beets, squash, zucchini, watermelon, etc) and berries for farmer’s markets and CSA members. We also raise grass fed livestock and poultry on over 12 acres of pasture.
On September 3rd and 4th of this year, the Felton area was slammed with severe thunderstorms that poured out 5-8 inches of rain causing regional flash flooding. The Dittmar Farm was submerged from a combination of drainage issues: climate change, neighboring field runoff, the illegal dumping of tires into neighboring areas which restrict proper drainage in the existing culvert, and the perimeter railroad tracks which are built on an incline and have inadequate/undersized culvert diameter for drainage. All of these factors create a damn, of sorts, where the water has nowhere to escape thus causing standing water of up to 4 feet in some areas on the farm. This flooding resulted in the majority of our turkeys drowning, the loss of our fall crops, the spoiling of winter hay, and it created water damage to our brand new tractor (bought 3 weeks prior to the flood).
We are hoping to raise funds to help replace the lost income from animal and crop loss ($6,000), repair bills for the tractor ($5,900), cleaning out an old existing ditch, and digging a retention pond to collect run off ($10,000). We are in need of estimated funds totaling $21,900.
For the purpose of full transparency, we will be sharing the journey of our farm improvements on our Facebook page, it is important that we at least attempt to mitigate the futures risk incurred during natural weather events.
The tractor is at the shop now. The ditch needs to be cleaned out (prefer to have this completed by the end of October), a retention ponds needs to be dug (hoping to have this completed before the end of 2020) and a swale drainage system needs to be put into place to assist us in limiting potential future losses.
Thank you in advance for your support.
Overcoming many obstacles we continued to grow our small farm operation and we purchased our present 40 acre farm in September 2017 in Felton, Delaware. As regenerative farmers, we practice minimal till, living root in soil as much as possible, utilizing biodiversity, soil armor and animal integration.
When we purchased this farm, we inquired about farm insurance from Nationwide (not enough experience), USAA (won’t cover floods because of our geographic location being too close to the coast), Family Farm Insurance (not large enough), USDA Farm Service Agency offered a catastrophic crop loss which had enormous requirements that made it near impossible for us to utilize (it is designed for an industrial farmer not for a market gardener with several different crops on limited acreage), and with a brokerage who came back with nothing for us.
Basically farm insurance is geared towards large scale, industrial farms and not farmers like us who provide CSA shares and a variety of market crops.
It has always been part of the Dittmar’s mission to be a positive role in our community. We do this by bringing underserved children onto the farm for opportunities to observe natural principles and to learn new skills, we donate to local food pantries and families in need and we seek to fulfill our main mission of providing healthy sustainably grown food, and to improve the environment by implementing true regenerative farm practices.
We grow approximately two acres of vegetables (tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, a variety of greens, broccoli, potatoes, carrots, radishes, beets, squash, zucchini, watermelon, etc) and berries for farmer’s markets and CSA members. We also raise grass fed livestock and poultry on over 12 acres of pasture.
On September 3rd and 4th of this year, the Felton area was slammed with severe thunderstorms that poured out 5-8 inches of rain causing regional flash flooding. The Dittmar Farm was submerged from a combination of drainage issues: climate change, neighboring field runoff, the illegal dumping of tires into neighboring areas which restrict proper drainage in the existing culvert, and the perimeter railroad tracks which are built on an incline and have inadequate/undersized culvert diameter for drainage. All of these factors create a damn, of sorts, where the water has nowhere to escape thus causing standing water of up to 4 feet in some areas on the farm. This flooding resulted in the majority of our turkeys drowning, the loss of our fall crops, the spoiling of winter hay, and it created water damage to our brand new tractor (bought 3 weeks prior to the flood).
We are hoping to raise funds to help replace the lost income from animal and crop loss ($6,000), repair bills for the tractor ($5,900), cleaning out an old existing ditch, and digging a retention pond to collect run off ($10,000). We are in need of estimated funds totaling $21,900.
For the purpose of full transparency, we will be sharing the journey of our farm improvements on our Facebook page, it is important that we at least attempt to mitigate the futures risk incurred during natural weather events.
The tractor is at the shop now. The ditch needs to be cleaned out (prefer to have this completed by the end of October), a retention ponds needs to be dug (hoping to have this completed before the end of 2020) and a swale drainage system needs to be put into place to assist us in limiting potential future losses.
Thank you in advance for your support.
Organizer
ZachandJenny Dittmar
Organizer
Felton, DE
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