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The Nation's Pulse
Drought Land
What happens to the land and water affects us all.
“We are suffering from drought terribly at this place. Half a crop of wheat, and tobacco, and two-thirds a crop of corn are the most we can expect.” — Thomas Jefferson to Martha Jefferson Randolph, August 31, 1815
For a week now the skies have been overcast, threatening rain. Plump, gray clouds heavy with moisture loom overhead. Instinctively, we reach for our umbrellas before we go outdoors. It seems inconceivable that the heavens will not open and release a torrential downpour. And yet the heavens do not. There is not even a sprinkle. The clouds move on sluggishly to taunt others, and blue skies return.
As we drive through rural Monroe County, Illinois, the air buzzing with the hum of locusts, we pass rows of sweet corn withering on the stalk. Since the spring, the St. Louis area has experienced two brief periods of precipitation, one lasted a few hours, the other a few minutes. Mr. Kruze, a family farmer from nearby Columbia, Illinois, from whom we buy heirloom tomatoes and freestone peaches at the Soulard Farmer’s Market (est. 1779), has not seen a drop. The Kruzes farm some of the best cropland in the valley, the rich, black bottomland beneath the Mississippi River bluffs. From his fields, situated farther west than downtown St. Louis, you can see on a clear day the Gateway Arch to the north.
The Kruzes have been watering their fields daily with Columbia city water, which they purchase by the gallon. Some crops require more care than others. “I’ve got a soaker hose on the tomatoes 24 hours a day,” Mr. Kruze says. Each day the drought drags on his profit margin shrinks. Others are finding creative ways to address the lack of rainfall. Mr. Kruze’s sister, who owns the farm next door, has an old well with water high in nitrates. The water is undrinkable, but it can be salvaged to water root crops like carrots and potatoes.
Those of us with a weak connection to the soil and watersheds scarcely notice the drought, save those suburbanites who have had to run the sprinklers continually to keep their lawns fresh and green (in some subdivisions, a brown lawn can result in a steep fine for homeowners) and have noticed an extra zero on the water bill. Those who work with the land or on the water, however, have felt it profoundly. Soon we will all feel it at the checkout line of our local grocery store. We may think we have lost our connection to farming, but we are deluding ourselves. “Eating is an agricultural act,” the poet Wendell Berry reminds us.
THE DROUGHT HAS slowed commerce on the nearby Mississippi, Illinois, and Missouri rivers as barge operators have had to reduce cargo loads. Every one inch loss of water decreases the carrying capacity of a barge by 17 tons, according to the American Waterways Operators. Some barges have stopped running altogether. Some end up on sandbars stalling river traffic. This too increases costs to farmers.
All of this will mean higher prices for us urban-dwellers. Such things used to be common knowledge, back when we were only one or two generations removed from the land. What happens to the land and water affects us all. This summer we are having to relearn this.
About the Author
Christopher Orlet writes from St. Louis.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (37) | Leave a comment
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aware| 8.16.12 @ 6:29AM
Pointless lives of suburbanites is about to get bad and they better learn to like the taste of lawn and shrubbery. Even worse for the urbanites cause they don't even have lawns to munch on. Just each other.
Corn up $15/bushel just yesterday. Glad I have mine in and stored along with many jars of tasty beans, peas, tomatoes, jelly, pickles, and other things from my large garden. Enough not only for my family, but for others not so well prepared but worth saving.
JP| 8.16.12 @ 8:25AM
The price of corn closed yesterday at $8.04/bushel.
THKrupp| 8.16.12 @ 9:22AM
I wouldnt say its going to get bad, its going to get slightly more expensive.
TLP| 8.16.12 @ 9:27PM
No, Mr. Corn Farmer.
It's gonna be CATASTROPHIC.
And, you know it,
aware| 8.17.12 @ 5:32AM
He fails to understand that while we spend about 20% on food here in the US(formally known as America), in many places in the world people spend 60 to 80% of their income for food. For them it could mean starvation. Yet some of us think it is more important to burn corn for our chariots so we can ride to the mall and buy Chinese crap than for people to eat.
THKrupp| 8.17.12 @ 9:35AM
But what you also fail to understand is that large portions of those populations are farmers. They will directly benefit from the run up in prices.
THKrupp| 8.17.12 @ 9:34AM
No its not. We are going to raise over 10 billion bu of corn. The market will cause rationing. Which is a good thing...its already happening. At least 23 ethanol plants that I know of have shut down. Prices will hover around the $8 mark for a while. Then a new crop will be planted next year.
Was the 1988 crop a disaster? We only grew a 4.9 billion bushel crop. You probably didnt even know it. Yields were reduced over 40% that year. This year it will be likely that they will be reduced 30%. The world did not end. The people that will be most affected by this will be livestock producers. Very little of the corn crop directly feeds people most of it is fed to animals.
Occam's Tool| 8.16.12 @ 3:20PM
Good for you, sir. Minnesota did fairly well, I believe.
Of course, I never worry about water prices---we get regular rain here up in the Great White North, and snow melt, and my water supply is from my own property---no water bill, ever. Gas and electric, phone and internet, but no water bill.
In New Mexico, we Xeroscaped due to lack of rain. Here where I live, my large, luxurious lawn is watered nightly by water supplies from my own property, and it rained nicely yesterday.
Feel sorry for those city folks and their urban sophistication and all.
aware| 8.16.12 @ 4:16PM
Bravo! Your own water supply is worth more than gold. I have my own too. Start a garden, it's better to figure it out when you can fall back on the grocery store than if it really counts.
Occam's Tool| 8.16.12 @ 5:08PM
Wife plans on doing that next year---end of growing season in northern Minnesota rapidly approaches. Stay safe and healthy, sir, and G-d Bless.
Appleby| 8.16.12 @ 6:53AM
It must be frustrating for the Occupiers, this drought. Nobody to march against, nobody to sue, nobody to tweet a list of Demands...
It must be frustrating for atheists too. To whom shall they go?
Pecos Pete| 8.16.12 @ 7:10AM
And the gobmint's CPI says there is NO inflation? And the gobmint's unemployment index says we are at 8% plus? And the polls tell us that King O is leading R&R?
Von Mises Jr| 8.16.12 @ 9:11AM
It is another statistical trick. The government reports the Core Inflation rate that factors out energy and food as they claim they are too volatile. But much of what Middle Class and poor people pay for after their fixed debts (mortgage, car loan) is food and energy related. This Core number is about 2% typically.
The number that includes food and energy has been about 8-10% and seems to be rising.
Inflation is a tax. We think of it as the rise in prices, but this is a mistake. Mackinac Center explains that when government convinces the public it is a price issue, we blame companies, farmers, banks.....But it is really a devaluation of the dollar that is occurring. Milton Friedman (Paul Ryan studied him) explains that "inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon."
So the core inflation rate is used since reporting the real inflation rate would alert you to what Bernanke and Geithner are doing to your purchasing power. They are redistributing your wealth and fixed income to cronies for votes.
THKrupp| 8.16.12 @ 9:20AM
I have always thought that. When I was farming I figured I had to have at least $200,000 in gross income in order to have a decent net. Now that gross is much higher. You always have to be expanding and getting larger to maintain your net purchasing power. If you arent growing, you are dying. This fact alone is to blame for the concentration in any industry. This is why mom and pop stores end up going broke.
Von Mises Jr| 8.16.12 @ 10:23AM
If the small farms and small business go broke, and Obama has already consolidated the banks, auto industry and health care; you have fascism. Government will control business and we will live in Agenda21 "stack and pack" compounds working for one of their government controlled monopolies.
If Obama wins or the Senate remains socialist under Reid, the only constellation is I already lived most of my life. Maybe liberal couples didn't have many babies because they knew that if the liberals were successful, it might be better not to be born.
TSD| 8.16.12 @ 7:51AM
Here is where the rubber meets the road. Cattle in the states effected by the drought will be eating straw to fill they're bellies....if they are lucky. Who to point our finger at, oh who to blame. Food prices going up and possible shortages, oh the poor freeloaders will whine and complain.... I feel sorry for the cattle.
Butch| 8.16.12 @ 5:18PM
Actually, there is a shortage of hay, here, TSD. Ranchers are buying 18-wheeler truckloads of it from several states away. Stock ponds have mostly dried up, too. It's a disaster.
sbark| 8.16.12 @ 8:16AM
Have to realize this is still the 8th largest corn crop in USA History because of the number of acres planted. Cattle were being moved to greener pastures all summer, and or hay being shipped to cattle ---hay prices have gone from 30 per bale to 70 per bale as demand up to keep cattle herds intact. Once the corn crop is harvested the cattle will be turned out into the stubble or the stubble baled up and fed. Bottom line most farmers treat their cattle very well, they may cull out the older ones to stretch the feed supply, sell the calves off earlier to save feed. The breeding stock will be kept in place---the cattle prices are too high to "stop the factory "
John Navratil| 8.16.12 @ 9:46AM
sbark,
It would be interesting if you had the percentage of those larger seven crop year diverted to ethanol. Anyone?
Von Mises Jr| 8.16.12 @ 10:29AM
Hey John, I would guess that the top crop producing years are less important than the government policies at the time.
I was just introduced to the Mackinac Center and they have a pamphlet by Lawrence Reed "Great Myths of the Great Depression."
I almost messed myself reading it. Hoover had the same policies we saw at the end of the Bush Administration and the money supply manipulation under Obama and Bernanke.
Then the socialist policies under FDR are almost exactly the same as what Obama, Pelosi and Reid have perpetrated on the country. It is as if they are following the playbook.
JP| 8.16.12 @ 8:50AM
Because of the warm winter and spring we had most wheat farmers got their crop harvested before the heat moved in. Most Midwest farmers were also able to get their first hay crop harvested early as well. Last year, the problem was the opposite - too much rain and rather cool temps put off the 1st cuttings by 2-3 weeks.
I know that farmers here who had a very bad corn crop this year, plowed their corn fields under and will plant Winter Wheat this autmn.If all goes well, they will still have time to get a soybeam crop in the ground next July.
Forty years ago, there was a severe drought in the Plains and Midwest. It hit right after Nixon announced a record wheat sale to the USSR (400 metric tons). Back then the fields just perished. Today, technology allow can do a lot. The big problem as I see it, is we've become a 1 or 2 crop nation (corn, beans). Thanks the ethanol, wheat, cotton, and barley farmers turned to the more lucrative corn and bean crops. It is never good to get too hooked on one crop.
THKrupp| 8.16.12 @ 9:25AM
You also have to remember that past government programs dictated to a certain extent what a farmer planted. Now farmers can plant according to what the market dictates. The farmer can sell ahead, take crop insurance and keep his bottom line fairly well protected. Most farmers hit hard by the drought this year that have crop insurance wont really notice a large change in revenue.
JP| 8.16.12 @ 10:48AM
I agree with you. The Futures markets allow farmers to sell ahead of time, which certainly improves their cash flows.
THKrupp| 8.16.12 @ 10:59AM
Crop insurance products are much better now too. That makes a huge difference. I remember 88 and 83. You had insurance but it wasnt very good. Now farmers have revenue insurance which actually guarantees a certain level of production at certain prices depending on what level of protection you purchase.
THKrupp| 8.16.12 @ 11:03AM
I do agree with you that leads to more concentration of planted acres into certain crops as all farmers will plant that which that believe to make them the most money.
JP| 8.16.12 @ 1:08PM
I brought the suject up because just a few years ago even cotton and peanut farmers in Georgia were replanting their fields with corn. I even read that long time hop growers in Bavaria were turning to corn.
Plant diversification more than anything broke the famine/plenty cycles that plagued Europe for a 1000 years. Where I live, I remember working summer help on farms that grew wheat, oats, hay, as well as corn and beans. But that was 40 years ago.
TLP| 8.16.12 @ 8:59AM
Let's open up our Bibles, people. Turn to the Last Chapter of The New Testament, and start reading.
'There will be Drought and Famine. War and Conflict. Natural Disasters will become more Frequent, and more Powerful, with Earthquakes, Volcanoes, Tsunamis, and the like.'
All of these things, coinciding with the Coming of Pure Evil.
"And I saw the Beast rise from the Sea. And he was given a MOUTH, to speak Haughty and Blasphemous words. And he was allowed to Exercise Authority for Forty Two Months. Revelation 13-5.
The Final Battle is already taking shape, for Jerusalem. We have an Ally to Evil, sitting in the Oval Office, giving Aid and Comfort to the Demon Spawn in the Middle East. The Great Army that Revelation foretells, is taking shape, as one after another Arab Country falls in to the hands of the Armies of the Pagan Moon God, and his Cult of Blood.
As Drought consumes the world's crops, Riots, and Upheaval, due to Food Prices and Shortages, will overwhelm the Governments of the Third World, and the remaining Non-Fundamentalist Arab Countries.
But, you all already knew all this, didn't you?
aware| 8.17.12 @ 5:36AM
Now you are on to something important, friend. Maybe you will find this interesting: http://www.mefeedia.com/watch/32463793
Petronius| 8.16.12 @ 12:18PM
Our control freak masters in D.C. love it. The prospect of $10 a pound ground meat delights the diet police and Moochelle.
Frekki| 8.16.12 @ 1:34PM
Do any of you farm? I do. The corn crop in Indiana is bad, worse than I thought it would be. Up North they are bush-hogging the corn. 2 and 3 feet high, not worth even silage. Full insurance payout.
And yet this Obama administration still wants to burn food as fuel. Immoral. These selfish people are starving children in the third world. And don't tell me how we started this by undercutting their local farms. It is what it is today. Expensive corn means I make lots of money and children starve. I guess that's ok for the democrats in Washington. It's not ok with me.
Occam's Tool| 8.16.12 @ 3:26PM
Frekki: a minor, minor, minor point. (By the way, I wish all the farmers well. My father in law has 600 head of cattle on his farms)
What is the religion of those children who are starving in subsaharan Africa? And, if they have subnormal brains as a result, what is the military potential?
I agree that ethanol is a waste as AGW is a crock. But, there is a silver lining.
Open up adoptions to the US from Central America---we need more American kids, and my two HISPANIC children are being raised to vote Republican---they got in legally as infants and are American citizens for many years, now. That's how we solve the starving children problem AND our demographic crisis AND our assimilation crisis all at the same time.
Frekki| 8.16.12 @ 5:07PM
The eventual status of third world children doesn't change my responsibilities. I am amazed at the self-justifying morality of the environmental left. They encourage policies that lead to death while turning their faces from the reality they create.
Anyway I think most international adoption problems start in the host countries. They don't want their poor children but they get insulted if we do. We just need to keep trying.
Occam's Tool| 8.16.12 @ 5:11PM
Frekki: you are correct, of course, on the food supply. As for the status of 3rd World children: it is the Hague Convention and Unicef behind this, believe it or not. Both my babies are Mayan Indians from Guatemala. Treasure more precious than Platinum.
Petronius| 8.16.12 @ 7:37PM
F
All to true. And the Death the Environmental Left wants is OURS.
Houdini| 8.16.12 @ 6:29PM
Adoption...horrors! imagine in this day and age someone would be so cruel and remove a defensive child from his home country and bring him or her here to a life of freedom and opportunity when everyone knows it is much more humane to simply kill them in the womb.
Patrick Lee | 8.16.12 @ 1:44PM
Do you like Thomas Jefferson?
Check out his blog at http://ThomasJeffersonLeadership.com/blog/
Several times each week, he posts briefly on a variety of topics, including agriculture.
Last week's posts were:
- Does your Head (reason) or Heart (emotion) prevail?
- Should the government subsidize anything? If so, what?
- Should females be educated?
This week's are:
- Does one lie lead to another? And another? And ....? (A video post)
- Are you strict …. or loose? Does it make any difference?
Patrick Lee | 8.16.12 @ 1:44PM
Do you like Thomas Jefferson?
Check out his blog at http://ThomasJeffersonLeadership.com/blog/
Several times each week, he posts briefly on a variety of topics, including agriculture.
Last week's posts were:
- Does your Head (reason) or Heart (emotion) prevail?
- Should the government subsidize anything? If so, what?
- Should females be educated?
This week's are:
- Does one lie lead to another? And another? And ....? (A video post)
- Are you strict …. or loose? Does it make any difference?