Farm-ageddon: High Rate Farmers Fight Climate Change

Panicked farmers in the Midwest are faced with the growing likelihood that large tracts of land will remain unplanted or that crops will fail during the growing season because the land will remain under water or too wet for the growing season. material and agricultural plants.

The overwhelming weather is in addition to the trade war between Donald Trump and China, which has already triggered a record number of agricultural bankruptcies.

These are the wettest 12 months ever recorded in the United States and scientists associate it with the effects of climate change.

"The frequency of these disasters, I can not say we have experienced such a situation since I work in agriculture," John Newton, chief economist at the Federation of US Agricultural Bureaus, told the Washington Post.

This is the slowest planting period in 39 years.

The sodden fields are fallow and the maize and soybean crops that have been planted are delayed in the mud. The most affected states are Ohio, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Michigan. Water has started to decline in some areas this week, but precipitation is in stronger forecast.

"This is going to be a wrecked train," said Crain, Chicago Business, the Illinois Corn Grower James McCune, whose family had been plowing the soil since 1857. He could plant only 950 acres this year on the 6,000 acres he exploits.

A Missouri farmer described her family farm as "a lakefront property," adding, "the fields are disappearing."

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine is looking for a federal disaster declaration for more government funds. Barely 50 percent of the state's maize crop and 32 percent of the soybean crop were planted a few days ago due to ongoing rains and floods. There is already a state of emergency in every county in Oklahoma.

Indiana corn grower Kendall Culp and his 80-year-old father described this year's weather as "unprecedented.

The Trump administration is already spending $ 27 billion on subsidies to help farmers survive the president's trade war. But that will probably not affect the additional damage of the floods.

Trump did not acknowledge the flood record on the group that he described as "patriotic peasants", to whom he attributed his help to bring him into the White House. He does not even believe that climate change exists. The climate has changed, he concedes. "Will it come back?", He recently asked in an interview with Axios. "Probably, that's what I think." According to scientists, the changes it has made to its policy – including its intention to ease vehicle emission standards – will worsen climate change.

A new study from Purdue University found that farmers' sentiment was the lowest in three years. Farmers are increasingly pessimistic about their future, citing losses from both Trump's trade war and current weather conditions, according to the study.

The National Agricultural Statistics Service of the US Department of Agriculture has estimated that farmers planted only 67% of the area planned for corn on June 3rd. At the same time last year, they were 96%. "This translates to nearly 40 million acres of unplanted corn," said Michale Nepveux, an economist at the American Farm Bureau Federation. said the Pacific standard. "It's astronomical."

By the end of May, only 29% of soybeans had been planted, compared with 66% at the same time, according to data released Tuesday by the Department of Agriculture. By the end of May in Indiana, only 2% of the corn crop and 11% of the planned soybean had been planted.

It's not just farmers, but their communities who are suffering.

"Everything comes from the land and feeds our small towns, our elevators, our fertilizer business, our seed business, our machinery business, etc.," said Illinois Farmer Dan Koster . "There is this effect of training that will affect all these guys."