Minnesota DOT Keeps Rural Roads Open during Winter Weather, Saves Money through Partnership with Farmers

By partnering with farmers in the central and southwestern regions of the state, the Minnesota Department of Transportation has been able to keep many rural roads safe and open for drivers during winter weather occurrences, saving commute time and taxpayer dollars.

For the last 15 years, MnDOT has worked with several farmers, asking them to leave a minimum of six rows of corn on fields by those rural roads. Those corn stalks, typically down in the winter, break the force of wind and collect the snow around them, preventing it from drifting onto roadways. By attracting that snow, the corn stalks improve driver visibility and roadway surface conditions and also lower the cost of MnDOT road maintenance (such as plowing).  Participating farmers enter a formal agreement with MnDOT and are “reimbursed using a formula based on yield, production, costs, inconvenience factors and price of corn,” according to an MnDOT statement.

This past winter, MnDOT received more corn stalk participation than ever before, due largely to efforts of two individuals. MnDOT snowplow driver Gene Munsterman asked some farmers along his route to participate in the program, but received some pushback in “bringing out their combines in the spring to harvest a few rows of corn, and they weren’t interested in handpicking either.” To fix this issue, University of Minnesota extension educator Gary Waytt encouraged the Future Farmers of America and 4-H clubs in the Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop and Nicollet school districts to pick the corn. In return, farmers made a donation of the harvest proceeds to the clubs, increasing the participation in the program to 17 sites with more than six miles of standing corn rows.

According to MnDOT, the program returns $14 in savings (from plowing, equipment use, and labor) for each dollar invested. MnDOT also said the program greatly increases safety, as the corn rows reduced “the severity of injuries on curves by 40 percent.”

“This is a great example of the rural community coming together and making a difference during the winter driving season,” said MnDOT Living Snow Fence Coordinator Dan Gullickson in a statement. “We get the benefit of snow control and FFA and 4-H members made a big difference in reducing our costs and ultimately helping people get safely to their destinations.”

Additional information on the standing corn row program is available here.