Our region is known for lots of things – great food, great neighbors, great events and, often, for receiving lots of snow.

In a recent snowstorm, Steuben, NY, received 60 inches of snow – just a few inches less than Camden, which topped the local charts with more than 65 inches. A little snow can be fun; a lot of snow can cause problems, including for farmers.

With the recent record-breaking snowfall that fell across the North Country and Central New York (upwards of five to six feet), it’s important to go around your farm buildings to check out the depth of the snow, primarily on the east side, as prevailing winds usually come from the west and deposit snow on the east end.

To give you some perspective, I’ve done some research and there are some pretty scary facts that will shock you, as it did me.

Why it’s important to shovel your barn roof & check your insurance policy

At 6 Point Acres Farm in Steuben, rancher Rob Maciol shovels snow off the roof of his barn on Jan. 5. Photo by Tammy Maciol

A cubic foot of snow can weigh between 1 and 21 lbs./square foot, depending on the temperature and moisture content of the wind-driven packed snow. But on average, a cubic foot of snow can often weigh around 20 lbs.

Say you have a barn or building that is 50 feet wide by 100 feet long (like we do at the Simons Family Farm). If you calculate 50 x 100 feet with three feet of snow on top, that’s an amazing 300,000 lbs. – or 150 tons – of snow on the roof.

Depending on the type of structure and age of the building, 20 lbs. (or one foot) of snow is the beginning of the danger zone of weight.

That’s why it is very important to shovel your roofs and check your insurance policies.

To put it bluntly, everyone should make sure that their insurance policy has the adequate coverage before the issue happens. It’s also common practice to have a snow-load collapse endorsement called “Broad Perils” on your insurance policy.

Simons Family Farm dairy barn on Starr Hill in Steuben on Jan. 5. Photo by Megan Goldstein

Structures that are more difficult to get insurance on are coveralls and greenhouses. Most insurance companies will not provide snow-load collapse on them. I do know of a farmer that had a silo fall over on his dairy barn and, sadly, it was not covered because his agent didn’t have “Broad Perils Collapse” on his policy.

My advice: Contact your insurance agent and ask them if you have “Broad Perils” or “Collapse” on your policy. If you don’t already, sign up for it.

Thank you to my daughter-in-law Megan Goldstein and the insurance agent who helped me obtain the information for this article, Jesse Marsh of Nationwide Insurance. Nationwide Insurance is the largest agriculture insurer in the U.S.

by Farmer Ben Simons

Ben Simons of Steuben is a local farmer and farmer advocate. He’s a member and past president of Oneida County Farm Bureau and is a state and Regional Agriculture advocate.