The results of the drought will be famine and more.

I think that we are all aware of the drought which has gripped the breadbasket of our nation. The drought has cut yeilds of crops to less than half. Some farmers are predicting that if it doesn't end soon there will be no harvest at all.
NOAA drought maps and info
NIDIS drought maps

Dennis Boogards looked sad and helpless when he stood by his sun-scorched 1,000-acre farm of corn and soybeans. The crops were half dried or barely growing, but there was still no sign of rain.
After a rainless July coupled with daily heat at 95 to 105 degrees Fahrenheit, the family farm owner in the U.S. Midwest state of Iowa now expects a harvest of merely 70 to 80 bushels per acre on the corn field, instead of the past average of 180 to 220 bushels an acre. His biggest wish right now is to see more rains in August, which can help fill out the soybean pods and stem the loss.

"See? The kernels are starting to dry up on this corn plant," Boogards told Xinhua in a recent interview, pointing to the plant he just pulled out of the field. "If we don't get any more rains, we will continue to see the kernels get smaller and continue to dry up."

Turning to a soybean plant, he added: "If it continues to dry, these flowers will dry up, shrivel and fall off. August is the most important time for bean pods to be filled. They really need moisture and not a lot of heat during August."

Source

What will this mean here and in the rest of the world? The answer is famine and rising prices.Not just here in the US but in other countries which depend upon the export of American food to feed their countries. There will not be enough food crops to go around. What there will be avalible will be very expensive. Food prices will rise. Meat prices will skyrocket. With no corn for ethanol gas prices will climb as well.

USDA site for tracking exports


The last time sever drought hit the US, it resulted in the dust bowl. At that time in the mid thirties.The great depression was upon us. The drought coupled with poor farming methods caused not only the faliure of crops , but the heavy erosion of the very soil. Huge clouds of dust were whipped up by the wind and traveled for many miles. The fields were destroyed and many people had to abandon their land.

Dust Bowl history

Today the farming methods are better and I don't think that we will see another dust bowl. Oddly the economic conditions are quite bad now as they were then. I wonder if this will put many farmers off their farms. The government has promised aid to farmers and ranchers if the drought continues. But will it be enough and in time to save the ones which are already struggling.

The livestock ranchers are already beginning to sell off their stock due to a lack of feed. With less stock avalible the meat prices will rise. They already are.

This year was the first time 67-year-old Ken Timms can remember cutting silage in July.

The drought, rated severe for all of southeast Nebraska and northeast Kansas, stunted entire corn crops and destroyed others, leaving little for producers to feed to an already withering cattle herd.

“I’ve been feeding cattle all my life and running this particular feed yard for 20 years, and I have never seen anything like this in my life,” he said.

Timms, who runs Double T Livestock near Adams with his son Randy and Brett Stanley, said the severe drought is putting entire cattle operations in jeopardy.

The corn they were able to salvage only produced about half the grain it would normally produce, Timms added. Some fields were so dry they couldn’t be cut because they wouldn’t pack.

The lack of grain available for his feedlot and the potential some ethanol plants may not have any corn to process for ethanol distiller byproduct this fall and a lack of available hay means Timms and other operations of all different sizes are being forced to make some tough decisions.

“Our feed is our limiting factor and high priced corn is the other limiting factor,” Timms said. “If we’re not able to buy the distiller from the ethanol plants, we have some concern that we’re not going to have enough corn locally to feed the cattle.”

In the face of increasing costs to feed cattle, producers have been selling off herds as quickly as they can.

Beatrice 77 Livestock sale barn owner Dennis Henrichs estimated cattle sales rose between 40-50 percent in July compared to a year ago as producers liquidate their herds.

Source

So what exactly will this mean overall? All food prices will rise. How far will depend on how long the drought lasts.But I wonder how all the unemployed people will afford the rising prices? How will poor folks feed their families? Many of them struggle now to feed their families. How about the people overseas who depend upon food exports from the US? How about you and I? We will have to adjust our budgets to allow us to eat. What are you going to have to give up to afford to eat?

Many live stock producers say that the results of this drought will have long term consequences for their industry. They say that their stock didn't conceive due to the drought and stock supplies will be down for some time to come.

Other countries such as Argentina are suffering from reduced food production. This may be becoming a global problem. I wonder about the third world countries, many of whom rely on food imports to feed their people.

One way or the other this drought is going to have long term consequences for all of us. If it happens again next year, the results may be quite drastic.

famine
more info on the drought

Overall the midwest has been a good place to plant but just because the are in Amerika doesn't mean that they are exempt from the forces of nature.
It's a bad year, Texas had a couple in a row, hay prices went up, ranchers sold their stock, life went on.

reply to post by VforVendettea


Yes life goes on, but some climate scientists are saying that this is the new normal. Now I know that they are often wrong with their predictions, but what if they are correct this time and we have more years of this type of drought.
If there are multiple years of this and low precipitation during the winter, the problem will become very bad in a hurry.
It will grow worse every year,and the output of the American breadbasket will fall to dangerous levels.

Prices will definitely be higher but I don't think there will be wide spread famine. The midwest has had a bad year but there are plenty of other countries with bumper crops this year. The Canadian prairies are expecting above average yields this harvest.

www.winnipegfreepress.com... -corn-growers-its-the-cream-of-the-crop-163515016.html

reply to post by lonegurkha

So what exactly will this mean overall? All food prices will rise. How far will depend on how long the drought lasts

I had on the evening news the other night, mainly just for background noise when they did a piece on the Mississippi River and how this drought is affecting it. In the piece they said that some parts of the river have shrunk to about 1/3 of a mile across and that just astounded me.

So, in addition to the drought causing food prices to rise because of lack of production, the other shoe to fall will be if (and there has been some talk of this) the authorities decide to shut down the river to commercial traffic all together. River transport is a fraction of the cost as over land alternatives such as rail or truck, which would have to be imployed should they have to shut down the river. In all honesty, I had not even thought about this part of the whole situation.

In conclusion, the lack of production is potentially not going to be the only thing that will affect the pricing but the transportation costs will have to be factored in as well. Both aspects will not only affect the US but reach to the rest of the world as well.

I cannot believe this thread is not getting more attention, I guess compared to being pre-occupied with Olympic coverage and the mess in the ME this drought of ours is just not much of a concern... but it will be soon enough I am sure.

reply to post by minettejo


The link you've provided does not work for me. Care to retry or post relavent quotes? Would be appreciated thanks.

As for your assertation that you doubt this could cause global famine....think outside of your comfort zone. It could and other's agree with that statement. Here is a recent CNN article that supports that line of thinking:

"This is not some gentle monthly wake-up call, it's the same global alarm that's been screaming at us since 2008," said Colin Roche of Oxfam, noting that the drought could lead to food shortages for millions of people worldwide.

The article goes on to say:

Hallam said the world food supply isn't as lean as it was during the international food crisis of 2007 and 2008, because, even though corn prices are prohibitively expensive, consumers have other foods to fall back on.

For now.

"If countries start unilaterally panic buying or restricting exports, that could make a bad problem worse," said Hallam. "The situation right now is one of heightened vulnerability to any future shocks."

UD Drought Drives Up Food Prices Worldwide

Is it likely? I don't know, depends on how the other countries of the world react and prepare. But even you have to admit that the possibility is there should this continue.

reply to post by lonegurkha


Then farmers should plant multiple crops, drought flood and normal,
This used to be good management practice, if the corn failed you ate potatoes that year, if the potatoes and corn failed you ate beans, if all three you went over to the neighbor and bought enough of his rice to get by and considered giving up farming and raised sheep because you weren't very good at it at green things.

Think about it Do we really need this many acres of monsanto frankencrops? what percentage of the drought areas are monsanto crops? How did the non monsanto fare?

reply to post by MyMindIsMyOwn


It's good to see some body else can see the dire consequences of this drought. it's not just here , but in other countries around the world.

When I first thought of this topic and started putting together the sources for the thread I was shocked that it was as bad as it is. Should it continue for any length of time, perhaps into future years , we are well and truly screwed.

I thought that more people would see the implications of this, but I guess that folks are too used to there being avalibility of cheap food. Todays people have forgotton that drought and famine used to be common. They've gotton too used to always having easily avalible food sources and don't realize that if those sources dry up that will have very bad consequences.

It is going to be quite a shock when the true implications of the drought come to pass. Putting your head in the sand isn't going to make it go away.

reply to post by VforVendettea


You have a very good point there. I wonder about that as well. With information starting to come out that the frankencrops aren't as good as advertised, I really do wonder if they did as well as the adverts would have us believe.

What you say about the multiple crops is true. That's how it used to be. Now with the food markets the way they are, most farmers plant only what crops that will make them money. They no longer plan ahead for unforseen circumstances.

monsanto drought resistant GMO

more on the lack of gmo performance

more about gmo performance


These are just three of the returned results from a google search on the franken corn. There are many more. Seems that it performs pretty poorly.

Farmers in India have pumped so much water out of the ground, the level is so low now that each year they grow less and less crops, when they do get a good crop, there is no transport, and nowhere to store it, so the crops rot in the Monsoon rains, just bad allround. (information gleaned from gatestone institute, France 24, and various agricultural sites around the world.

we've had droughts before but we are living in a different time than we were during the last drought. there are more people who are much more dependent on food they buy at the store.

if this continues we could start seeing some major consequences. we could get some rain and all returns to normal but if it happens AGAIN within the next couple of years and it's just a little worse......

The drought is serious but not necessarily the reason prices are as high as the are,

40% of corn production is used to produce ethanol mandated by EPA and subsidized by further debt to the taxpayer, IMO its a very wasteful and in-efficient use of money and resources. Brazil uses sugar cane for ethanol production instead which is grown in areas not prone to drought and does not compete with the food supply chain.

Nearly all food prices are set to rise especially meat.

Just another dot gov boondoggle benefitting corporate farming with unintended results we all will pay for.

the results of drought will be GM acceptance.

Not to keep beating a dead horse here. But here is another article that points out just how the drought stricken crop production in the US can and does affect food availability and pricing world wide. Yes, that point is not the crux of this linked article but it does touch on the subject. (Thanks to DaveSpanners for pointing this article out to me)

The association blamed poor crop-growing conditions, particularly in the US, for a 25% rise in the cost of pig feed ingredients, which has meant many producers are unable to turn a profit.

Price of Bacon set to Soar