Roundup: Wet weather killing U.S. field crop production
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E-mail Xinhua, June 1, 2019
by Peter Mertz
DENVER, the United States, May 31 (Xinhua) -- If rain falls on U.S. Midwest farm belt this weekend, as predicted, "catastrophic" 2019 might get worse, farmers in the country fear.
"Farmers are facing an unprecedented situation thanks to the ongoing trade war, river flooding, and record-setting rain this spring," the Illinois Farm Bureau posted Wednesday.
On Friday, AccuWeather, a U.S. media company that provides commercial weather forecasting services worldwide, predicted showers on Saturday and Sunday for much of the Heartland -- across 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of farmland stretching from Texas to western Pennsylvania.
"Showers and locally severe thunderstorms will erupt and rumble across parts of the Midwest and the central and northern Plains ahead of a press of drier air into this weekend," AccuWeather posted Friday afternoon.
TERRIBLE TIMES
"2019 is turning out to be a nightmare that never ends for the agriculture industry," Seeking Alpha, a crowd-sourced content service for financial markets, bottom-lined in an article last week.
"Thanks to endless rain and unprecedented flooding, fields all over the middle part of the country are absolutely soaked right now, and this has prevented many farmers from getting their crops in the ground," they noted.
Since March, from the Rocky Mountains to the Ohio River Valley, the weather has been formidable.
Millions of Midwesterners have endured unremitting rainfall, hundreds of dangerous tornadoes, and rampant flooding that has spilling into already saturated grounds -- much of it farmland.
The National Weather Service (NWS)'s Storm Prediction Center logged 23 tornado reports on Tuesday and 29 on Wednesday, breaking the all-time record for consecutive tornado days in the country.
The 2019 season has seen 611 documented tornados across the United States that have killed 38 people thus far, up from 10 fatalities in 2018. Seven of the tornado deaths this year have occurred in May, the NWS reported.
Of the 6,000 flood gauges that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration maintains on waterways across the country, 381 were above flood stage this week across the Central Plains and in the upper Midwest, according to Bill Bunting, chief forecaster at the Storm Prediction Center.
SOYBEANS, CORN AND WHEAT
Much of the most severe flooding is concentrated in Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, northwest Iowa, southeastern South Dakota and Oklahoma where on Tuesday the governor declared all 77 counties were in a state of emergency.
Illinois and Iowa are the top two soybean producing states in the United States, according to Arista.com.
"I put my first crop in 1974, and this, without a doubt, has been the longest, most frustrating season I've had in my career," Terry Davis, a Roseville Illinois farmer told FarmWeekDay.com.
"I'm losing corn right now from standing water," he said.
In neighboring Ohio, the forecast was equally bleak, although areas were hoping to miss the showers.
"The problem is we see systems with only 1 to 3 days of dryness tops in-between ... which does not allow for net drying at all over the long haul," OhioAg.Net posted Wednesday.
"As much as 3 to 5 inches (8 to 13 cm) of rain will soak soils from South Dakota and Minnesota south to Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas," said the U.S. Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.
Kansas and North Dakota are America's top two wheat producing states, according to Atlas.com.
"We have never had a year quite like this before, and U.S. food production is going to be substantially below expectations," the Indiana Farm Bureau posted this week.
"I very much encourage everyone to get prepared for much higher food prices and a tremendous amount of uncertainty in the months ahead," they added.
In Nebraska, the country's third top producer of corn, "74 cities, 65 counties and four tribal areas have declared states of emergency," said Megahn Schafer, executive director of the Nebraska Farm Bureau Foundation (NFBF).
"The cost of the damage has surpassed 1.3 billion U.S. dollars," state officials said.
"We continue to think that planting progress will be difficult to see going forward and will depend more on luck -- being lucky enough to miss out on at least one of these waves -- than anything else," Schafer posted.
LOWER-THAN-EXPECTED 2019 YIELD
Corn and soybean production in the United States for 2019 will be lower than the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimate, and also lower than the 2018 yield because of continued wet weather throughout a number of key states, AccuWeather stated this week.
"The next two weeks are critical for corn planting," said AccuWeather senior meteorologist Jason Nicholls. "Most intended corn acres not planted by June 4th will likely go to soybeans or be left unplanted."
AccuWeather estimates the 2019 corn crop will yield 14.15 billion bushels, lower than the USDA's estimate of 14.9 billion bushels and also lower than the 2018 yield of 14.3 billion bushels.
According to the USDA's crop progress reports, only about 11 percent of Illinois corn, and about 4 percent of soybeans have been planted.
Last year at this time, 88 percent of corn and 56 percent of soybeans were already in the ground, the USDA said.
"I would use the word 'catastrophe' to describe what Illinois farmers are facing, but the truth is that what they are going through is far beyond that," Nicholls added.
The USDA forecast net farm income, a broad measure of profits, of 69.4 billion U.S. dollars this year. If accurate, that would be the third year of net income below 70 billion U.S. dollars since 2015.
"We're starting to see a new average coming out here," said USDA economist Carrie Litkowski at a webinar on Wednesday, noting that farm income in 2019 will be far below it was early this decade. Enditem
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