North Dakota Issues State of Emergency for Cold Snap

North Dakota is having issues with extremely cold weather within its borders. As a result, Governor Doug Burgum has declared a State of Emergency to help save North Dakota’s agricultural industry.

Details

The Declaration is not unlike a similar one performed by Florida three months ago to save its agricultural commodities, except whereas Florida grows citrus fruits, North Dakota does more staple food crops and grains such as wheat, barley, and rye.

The Emergency Declaration, which you can read on its webpage, is more of what you would expect from a Declaration: truckers traveling to deliver agricultural inputs such as fertilizer, pesticides, and seed are exempt from hours-of-service until that trucker completes a delivery or is tired, upon which he or she must take a ten-hour continuous break.

The Declaration does not cover the transportation of agricultural outputs, or harvested crops. The reason for this is because, according to the Declaration, the window to plant crops has been shortened by the extreme weather, and time is of the essence to plant vegetation:

“…due to late snowfalls, extended cold, historic flooding, and extreme weather events, agricultural producers in North Dakota face a delayed spring season, resulting in a limited timeframe for planting and treating fields…” the Declaration reads in its first paragraph.

As with every other hours-of-service suspension, all other rules and regulations of the road still apply.

Conclusion

The Declaration started on May 10th and is set to expire on June 9th, unless it needs to be extended under direct approval from Governor Burgum.

This is not the first time that Governor Burgum has issued a State of Emergency to save the state’s $4 billion agricultural industry; he also signed off approval on a similar Declaration back in September of last year.

With the summer set to begin soon, North Dakota may be in for a season of wildfires. We hope that the Peace Garden State is not on the horns of a dilemma and is able to have a prolific season this year for all of its different kinds of farming products.

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