E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSFarmers in Missouri and across the Midwest are suffering through a historic drought leaving behind scorched pastures and dried-up ponds. NBC's Jay Gray reports.
“Normally they begin in July and go through the middle of August, but this year they started in June. So we've had an extraordinary amount of heat and lack of water."
U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack designated all of Missouri’s 114 counties as disaster areas, enabling farmers to access federal assistance, in mid-July. As much as 93 percent of the state is suffering through extreme drought conditions.
David Franscka said it's the worst his family has seen in more than 50 years of dairy farming.
Paying more for feed than getting for milk
"This year, with the intense heat we've had and the lack of rain, we've had only two measurable rains since April 30,” said Franscka.
NBC's Jay Gray reports from a dairy farm in Bolivar, Mo., where farmers are struggling to pay sky-high hay and feed prices for their livestock, spurred on by the drought.
Ponds have dried up, forcing his family to haul as much as 8,000 gallons of water each day to the cattle herd. Pastures aren't producing any hay or grass for grazing either, leaving many farmers, like Franscka, with no choice but to buy feed – which right now costs more than the milk he's producing.
"'We've spent in excess of $150,000 over the last three months just on the added costs,” he said. “Anytime you're getting less for your milk than you're paying for your feed – it's not going to come out.”
“That's what's discouraging, knowing you’re going in the hole everyday money-wise,” he said. “But you have to keep hoping and holding on, thinking it's going to change."
Some smaller farms have been forced to close down – selling-off their cattle for slaughter.
Drought conditions plague much of the United States after a summer of scorching temperatures and a lack of rain. The dryness is affecting America's farmland, threatening crops like soybean and corn.
Franscka said he's sold 60 out of the 1,000 head of cattle he had at the start of the summer – to help pay the bills and keep the milk flowing until the rain does.
"You persevere day to day, and just try to do what you can do today to make it till tomorrow. Just keep praying to the good Lord that he's going to send some rain,” he said.
It’s a prayer that continues to echo across Missouri, and the entire Midwest.
As the drought continues, ranchers worry for the future especially now that the total number of cattle in the U.S. is already the smallest in 60 years. NBC's Kristen Dahlgren reports.
More coverage of the drought:
Drought sends Mississippi into ‘uncharted territory’
‘Best year ever’ for some farmers outside drought region
Drought expected to take toll at checkout
Americans tell their story of #Drought2012
In drought-stricken Wisconsin, farmers helping farmers
Emergency well drilling brings relief to farmers stricken by drought
Have you been affected by the worst drought in more than 50 years? Share your photos with us on Instagram, Tumblr or Twitter with the tag #Drought2012. You can also upload your photos in the box below.
Leave a Comment:
Shrub, I think you're on to something. More parties, representing different sections of the population and then get their shares in a voice in government, it would at least take this stupid polarization to a lesser level, it's so intense I fear some Nugent nuts will take to arms if Obama is re-elected. Take a look at Sweden, they are doing quite well in this world depression. It has a "republican" style government but only because of coalition with some of the other parties. These extreme tea party politics could never work, plus media there is a lot more "investigative" compared to these frightened ABC, NBC and CBS "news" who are so afraid of being attacked from the right they rather say nothing. Instead they fill their 30 minutes of easy reporting, or funny youtubes or what is JK Rowling doing now? No wonder the majority of voters are, well I'll call it "lowinformed" not to be offensive.
Every one of these people knew that droughts happen, and yet they all waited until their wells ran dry instead of spending the money to drill a proper well for their needs during good years. That's called bad planning. Or faith.
Either way, while it's sad to hear what happens to the livestock, it's hard to feel sorry for people who continue to do the same thing, over and over again, with the hope of a better outcome next time. It's even harder to keep sending them my tax money to do it all over again, especially when they keep badmouthing the source of their help. However, since 'stupid' seems to be a rampant disease in that part of the world, depriving them of government aid would be like executing the 'intellectually challenged', so we'll keep pouring our money down another rathole.
So, how much deeper should we have dug our wells to safeguard ourselves from this drought? And what does that have to do with rainfall amounts and cattle grazing? I may be from the part of the world where "stupid" is a rampant disease, but we don't irrigate our pastures and hay fields with ground water. Pasture irrigation would be nearly impossible given the size and topography of the land you would be irrigating, and would do nothing but drive up overhead costs with minimal benefits. You must be from the part of the world where "arrogance" is a rampant disease. Check your facts before you post.
If you want to see what it looks like when an entire farming community slowly dries up and dies, just come on down to Bolivar; we've got plenty of misery to go around. I know that the whole "praying for rain" thing sounds crazy, and I won't argue with anybody about that, but these people have nothing else to hold on to. All the technology in the world can't make it rain right now, and that's what it's going to take to bring these farms back from the brink of destruction. For various reasons, some of you appear not to give a damn what happens to your fellow Americans. Unfortunately, that is a sad and tragic sign of the times we live in. You may not care about us because we talk about God in our daily conversations, or we dress different than you. It might be because we make our living working the soil, or raising livestock, or milking cows. Things that some of you may consider "dirty" work. Who knows? You may not care just because we live a long way from where you do. Whatever the reason is folks, I've got some bad news for you. You should care about what's happening here. Because, if you aren't raising your own beef, pork, and chicken. While at the same time milking your own cows. At this very moment you're paying somebody to do it for you. And some of those people are about to go out of business. Like it or not, this affects us all.
You make some excellent points. How we look or what we do for a living shouldn't bear on anything. I have no problem with whatever you want to talk about, as long as you recognize that I may not agree with your beliefs, and then leave it at that.
My question is why nobody planned for this? I lived and worked as a water well driller for 15 years in Nevada, a state that gets less than 6" of rain a good year, and we always went for the deep water in order to avoid the fluctuations you're having. All the ranches here flood irrigate from wells as deep as 3,000', and hay is a major export, regardless of the weather - and this is in the middle of the desert, where 'drought' is just another word for another dry day.
This seems more like a case of bad planning combined with wishful thinking, all backed up by government subsidies.
The water wells unfortunately aren't the issue for us right now. This area historically gets enough rainfall to produce hay and water grazing pastures without the addition of any irrigated water. I have plenty of water in my well, we just don't use it to irrigate for hay production. I also don't use it to irrigate my pastures for grazing the beef cattle we raise. The cattle have no grazing pastures to eat right now, so the hay we can put up has to go to feed them immediately. It's a no-win situation. As far as planning and foresight are concerned; I'll be very honest with you. It's a perfect storm of events that have led us to this. Nobody irrigates their hay fields here. NOBODY. It's just not necessary. Except for this year, of course. Even if we had wanted to install irrigation systems to water these fields, the money isn't there to do it. I don't get any subsidies; and my 160 acre farm might only be a speck on the map, but there isn't enough money left at the end of the year to install irrigation systems. Not while I keep my family and animals fed. If that means we need to dry up and blow away in the wind, then so be it. But, if I had installed those kind of systems years ago, the cost investment would have already bankrupted my farm.
I stand corrected and appreciate the factual response. I'm actually all in favor of helping out when needed, such as now, but frustration can sound like arrogance when trying to get through to some of the extremists here.
My comments about the wells come after reading endless stories about people having to haul copious amounts of water because their wells went dry, many as shallow as 30'. By any business measure, that's simply bad planning. However, it was too broad of a brush to include those in your situation where nothing really could be done differently.
I hope you're able to get some help - in a perfect world, this is what taxation would be all about.
I appreciate your response; and I too hope some form of help is forthcoming to this area. What form that help would be in, I don't really know. A 30' deep well?! That's insane! I hate to sound mean, but if they dug a well that shallow, they have nobody to blame but themselves. That's just piss-poor farm management.
I'm making a lot of fun here of the "prayin'" but I care very much what happens to these people. But for those of us that are not farmers we need to have someone talk about how to help. Really help. If it would help I'd take off work and go down to help them dig a well or take care of their livestock.
But so far we haven't heard much that amounts to a viable solution. I think it's Minnesota where they are digging wells. Is that what Missouri needs?
Someone post a link to someplace that tells us how to help.
Unfortunately, viable solutions seem to be in shorter supply than rain is around here. The Missouri Dept of Agriculture is doing some work providing funding for digging and deepening wells on some farms that initially had insufficient watering capacity. However, for many producers (myself included) this would benefit them very little. Our wells aren't dry at this time, so we aren't having any trouble watering our animals. It's the pastures and hay fields that are dead and dying from lack of rainwater. I'm currently feeding hay to my cattle. These cattle would normally be grazing in a pasture during this part of the year. Which would allow me to stockpile the grass off of other fields that the cattle don't graze on in the form of hay. We've only got to cut and bale hay once this year, and that was early in the spring. By my best estimates, if I continue to feed hay at this rate I'll be out of hay to feed my cattle by November 30th. Which means I'll have to buy hay from somewhere else at a highly inflated price, just to carry them through the rest of the winter. Unfortunately, the money to buy that hay just isn't in the budget.
So, the options are not exactly good right now.
I can feed hay until it runs out, and then sell all my cattle in December taking a chance there won't already be a flooded beef market.
I can sell my cattle now. Hold on to the hay I have left, and sell it in November or December. Then use that money to try to restart my cattle operation in the spring.
Or, I can feed hay for now. While at the same time hoping that it will rain enough in the coming months to let me get another cutting of hay off my fields. The rain would also help to green the pastures up enough to give the cattle some grazing forage too.
If I wanted to get an irrigation system installed (and I don't know that I can based on topography) it wouldn't be completed in time to stave off disaster.
So, loan assistance for feed and hay purchases to help get animals through the winter is going to be one of the major needs this area will have in the next six months. I can clearly see that the price of feed, and the ability to pay for it, is going to be the biggest hurdle in the near future. We could definitely use some rain too. The praying obviously isn't working! :)
help is not on the way.....
We have to Pray for More Rain. With Drought there is no grass or fodder for cattle to graze upon. Also buying Cattlefeed is costly since cattlefeed also has to be grown somewhere. One technique of bringing Rain could be Cloud Seeding. This technique of Cloud Seeding is perfected by Israel. Other method of bringing water is a long term solution ie. build water pipeline across the USA so that water from water surplus areas could be transported to water deficient areas. Other method could be to build canals from rivers sources across the USA so that a large quantity of water can be transported. We pray for rains for the USA in the drought prone areas. GOD Bless the Americans. GOD BLESS THE USA.
Kevin Valentine Moraes
Mira Road (Thane)
President Obama did it.
Guess we will have to eat seafood. This is the problem when big company's own all the food output.
Drought Situation Solved.
There is a man in Texas named Jerry "The Blue" Lebleue that has created a machine that extracts water from the air basically the same process of the dehumidifier but his invention takes out the things in the water that are not good for consumption.
Farmers should invest in building large scale Drought Masters so that during droughts they can use the water to water their fields through irrigation.
This system will work and WILL create many new jobs in areas that are prone to droughts.
I don't understand. Don't they have hoses and sprinklers in the midwest. I pass sod farms on my way to Court in Riverhead (Long Island) New York, on a daily basis. They have a system that rolls over the crops and waters everything. If New York farmers who are growing something as trivial and unimportant as green grass understand the importance of regular watering, how is it that midwest farmers, upon whom the food supply of entire nation depends, never effing heard of irrigation.
Yeah...they don't know about irrigation...brilliant!
The problem is with the levels of the aquifer from which the irrigation waters are drawn. The levels have dropped due to the drought, and there simply isn't enough water to draw from, unless one's well is extremely deep. Very few farmers have access to to such resources, and those who do, are in direct competition with the cities that need the water supply for the sustaining of human life.
I love it when people with no knowledge whatsoever of farming try to explain it to us simple country folk...on account of how dumb we are, and such!
Performing superstitious rituals such as praying isn't going to help.
I agree that there is no power in prayer. However, it also causes little harm.
Methinks sometime one of your buddies will pop off in public w some sh** like that.I'll be thinking of you when I meet them greg.
You can give me a time and place and you won't have to wait.