Published: August 25, 2022
Updated: June 10, 2024
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If caught unprepared, flooding can have a devastating impact on your farm, livestock, buildings, and more. As a farmer, it’s important to take proactive steps before matters become out of hand. Think about it, if city planners all over the country spend countless hours developing plans to reduce flooding, why wouldn’t you do the same for your valued farm?
Why is farm flooding prevention necessary?
While flooding prevention may at times seem like a financial and time-consuming burden, it most definitely has its advantages. Obviously, the clearest benefit of flood prevention is decreasing the likelihood of your land being flooded, along with your crops and livestock being protected. However, these precautionary steps can also improve water infiltration, which can lead to an increase in water availability for crops, reduce runoff that may carry away essential nutrients in the soil, and enhance the success of your fields.
What steps should be taken for flood prevention?
To begin, there are a few natural options that can help prevent flooding. Taking action by building ditches, barriers, and irrigation channels, designating run-off areas, and planting trees or changing crop types year after year are just a few practical options that can be beneficial in the scenario of a flood. Ditches and irrigation channels can direct where you want the water to go, which will most likely always be the designated run-off areas.
However, it is important to ensure that all run-off areas are not directed toward roads or watercourses, as this impairs the safety of fellow neighbors. Building barriers is important because it will keep water out of spaces it shouldn’t enter such as fields, buildings, and more. All of these irrigation and run-off structures mentioned can be built out of a few substances of your choice including dirt, stones, tree trunks, concrete, or any other materials that are seen fit.
How to develop an Emergency Response Plan
In the event that a flood does take place on your property, an emergency plan should be set in place so that you are prepared, response time is efficient, and it is ensured that the farm will be protected to at least some extent.
An Emergency Response Plan should consist of:
- Escape routes
- Responsibility delegation
- A phone list of important people who will come to assist on the scene
- Collection of emergency supplies
- Documentation of valuable inventory
Documenting inventory is helpful because it will easily identify if anything is lost during the flood, which is useful for insurance purposes down the road. Inventory lists should include livestock, equipment, crops, feed, or any other valuable assets.
Where can I find more information about flooding prevention for my farm?
If you have any additional questions or concerns about flooding prevention, contact the experts at Koenig Equipment.