Minnesota farmers still assessing damage after hail destroys thousands of acres of crops
RENVILLE COUNTY, Minn. -- Farmers in Renville County are still assessing the crop damage from last week's hailstorm.
"As soon as I turned my phone on it just blew up with texts and pictures of what had happened here," said Brian Ryberg.
A lifelong farmer in Renville County, Ryberg was flying back from vacation last Friday when he heard that hail was pummeling his crops.
"You always have to be careful what you wish for," said Ryberg. "I made the comment a few times that we'd take some wild weather with it just to get some rain. But not quite like this."
MORE NEWS: Minnesota's drought conditions improve with recent rainfall
Ryberg had 160 acres destroyed by hail but some of his neighbors lost more than 1,000 acres. The storm came at a time when Renville County was just starting to get consistent rainfall.
And it's not just corn fields that have felt the hail impact. Renville County is also known for soybeans and sugar beets - many of those fields were also lost.
"Here it's about as bad as it can get," said Ryberg. "You take a field that looked like it was going to be average or above average production and now it's a zero, why that … crop insurance doesn't make us any money."
For Ryberg, it's just part of farm life in Minnesota. There's nothing left to do but move forward.
"You just pull up your bootstraps and wait for next year. You prepare the farm for another year and know that you aren't going to have much income off of this one," said Ryberg.
Ryberg said that crop insurance, at best, will cover the costs it took to plant corn, soybeans and sugar beets.
