22 Ohio counties declared primary natural disaster areas as drought persists

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- The United States Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency has declared 22 Ohio counties are a primary natural disaster area due to drought, including 10 in central Ohio.

The counties listed in the natural disaster declaration are: Athens, Belmont, Fairfield, Fayette, Gallia, Guernsey, Harrison, Highland, Hocking, Jackson, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Morgan, Muskingum, Noble, Perry, Pickaway, Pike, Ross, Vinton and Washington. 

The declaration allows the department to provide emergency credit to farm operators in primary counties and contiguous counties through FSA emergency loan assistance. The loans can be used for recovery needs like replacing essential items or livestock to refinancing debts. The deadline to apply for loans is April 28, 2025, and can be done online here.

The drought conditions are taking an extreme toll on farmers and their livestock and crops. Ripple Run Farms in Circleville, run by Aaron Singerman and his wife, is feeling the drought's effects.

"It makes things really difficult for us to raise the birds in the amount that we need to produce for our customers, so we've had to decrease the amount of birds that we're bringing to the farm to produce just because of the lack of pasture," Singerman said. "It increases our feed costs so we've had to cut back this year."

He said during the extreme heat central Ohio experienced, they were losing anywhere from three to seven chickens a day. Singerman said they're losing poultry left and right, water supplies are low and their grass is almost nonexistent -- a nightmare for an all-natural, pasture-raised poultry farm. 

"We were having to bring out anywhere close to about 1001-50 gallons of water a day when we're usually doing about 30 gallons of water a day," Singerman said.

Aaron Wilson is with OSU Extension, Ohio State's College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and he's also the state's climatologist. He said the federal emergency declaration for drought in Ohio is the worst in decades. Last week was the first time the most intense level had been issued in the state since the drought monitor was created in 2000.

"For instance, when you look at a D-4 exceptional drought, it would be in the one to second percentile meaning that it's only going to happen statistically about once or twice at most every fifty to one hundred years," Wilson said.

"For us, the impact of this is having to lower the amount of birds that we're bringing to the farm that we can bring to our customers has increased some of our feed costs because we're having to buy more feed to feed the birds, which has increased our cost for us to raise the chicken and pass it on to our customers," Singerman said.

Wilson said over the next couple of weeks, Ohioans likely won't see much relief from these drought conditions. 

"This is a dry time of year and we're still expecting over the next couple of weeks precipitation to still be below average. That's not going to help," Wilson said. 

Wilson said Ohio also can't lose sight of farmers' mental health, and the toll this extreme drought is taking on their families and livelihoods. OSU Extension has online resources available for any farmers that are struggling that can be found here.