Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
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Many farmers in Iowa are facing a disaster as storms and floods have damaged crops across much of the state.
In a telephone interview Friday, Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey told Iowa Independent that corn and soybean crops in Iowa are under serious stress because of incessant rain and flooding.“Certainly some producers are impacted much more than others, and not all areas of the state are impacted the same way. But when you look individually in many cases and collectively, this is a disaster,” said Northey. “I don’t know how to rank it compared to others in the past, and I don’t think most producers care one way or the other. They know what their losses are and that’s what’s important to them. But it is certainly a significant problem for production.” Northey said livestock producers are highly concerned as the fears of reduced corn yields have driven up prices for feed.
This has been a tough year to try to raise crops in Iowa. It all started as a harsh winter turned into a cold, wet spring that offered less than ideal conditions to plant. Much of the corn and soybeans in Iowa were planted late, but now that’s the least of many farmers’ worries. Across much of the state, those late-planted corn and soybean fields are now totally flooded — raising concerns about whether this year’s crops can meet the needs of food and fuel production.
“The crops vary all across the state,” said Northey. “And you know even within the same county they vary. But in most parts of the Iowa other than the northwestern quarter of the state, there is stress from having just too much water. And in some cases we’ve had situations where folks still haven’t been able to plant.”
Northey said that as of last Monday, about 2 percent of the corn and 14 percent of the soybeans in Iowa were not yet planted. But, he said, about 7 percent of the corn and 6 percent of the soybeans have been drowned out. “That makes it almost 10 percent of the corn and about 20 percent of the soybeans that are not out there growing right now,” he said.
Farmers should not hesitate to report their losses to the Farm Service Agency office in their county, he said. “That helps us know what the losses are out there, whether it’s a loss from a storm blowing a building down or it’s a loss of a hay crop or areas that didn’t get planted, that can help us gather the information we need to be able to make requests down the road for financial help. Especially federal financial help.”
A new permanent disaster program was recently passed as a part of the new federal farm bill, and Northey said he’s going to work to make sure Iowa’s disaster this year is recognized. “We’ve got a permanent disaster program in the new farm bill. None of us know exactly how that’s going to work, because the rules aren’t written yet, but certainly it makes sense for us to keep track of the numbers as best we can to document the losses that are out there,” said Northey. “This is a disaster situation that is certainly being recognized outside of the state of Iowa. We’d like to see the rules on that program as soon as we can.”
Many farmers might still have a chance to re-plant crops if the weather would straighten up, Northey said, but each individual farmer has a lot of things to consider when making those decisions. Even at such a late date, with certainly that corn yields will be poor, it still may make sense for farmers to re-plant given the historic high prices of corn.
“It depends on your situation, whether it makes sense to re-plant corn or go to beans,” said Northey. “The prices have moved up, and so even in less than ideal yield conditions, it could still pencil out if you can get back in there with corn.” But he said in some situations a field may have been treated with pesticides that are corn-specific, leaving few options.
“The challenge that you have with corn at this late time is that it still has to get done by fall,” he said. “And corn has to be dry to be stored. You can dry it, but that’s pretty expensive with high-priced fuel. And if we get an early frost, you could have corn that’s not dry that takes a lot of drying to be able to bin that up. So there is a much greater risk planting at this time of year, and there will be a lot of people that’ll look to those holes in the corn fields and go ahead and plant soybeans. It’s a little less risky.”
Northey also stressed the fact that nothing is more important than safety. “Even if the producers out there trying to get out in the fields, we need them to make sure they’re staying safe. It’s tough to go through this financially, but we want folks to stay physically safe as they go out there and do the things that they have to do.”
“Good sunshine and dry weather would help everybody’s attitude and certainly would help the crops out there,” he said. “It could solve some of the problems that are out there. But right now we’ve got a very serious situation.”
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