Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,
We are witnessing “unprecedented” crop failures all across the United States, but the big mainstream news networks are not talking too much about this yet.
As you will see below, local news outlets all over the nation are reporting the disasters that are taking place in their own local areas, but very few people are putting the pieces of the puzzle together on a national level. The endless rain and horrific flooding during the early months of this year resulted in tremendous delays in getting crops planted in many areas, and now snow and bitterly cold temperatures are turning harvest season into a complete and utter nightmare all over the country. I am going to share with you a whole bunch of examples below, but first I wanted to mention the snow and bitterly cold air that are rolling through the middle of the nation right now…
A wintry weather pattern that brought single-digit temperatures and more than a foot of snow to parts of the Upper Midwest rolled across a wide swath of the nation Monday, threatening to break hundreds of records and bring a deep freeze as far south as Florida.
“The coldest surge of arctic air so far this season will bring widespread record low temperatures for much of the central and eastern U.S. even down to the Gulf Coast,” said Kwan-Yin Kong, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center.
We are being told that “more than 300 daily records” are likely to be broken, and this will be the final nail in the coffin for this harvest season for countless numbers of farmers.
And even without this latest wave of bitterly cold weather, this was already going to be the worst year for U.S. agriculture that most people can remember. The following are 12 examples of the crop disasters that we are witnessing right now…
#1 North Dakota: “Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has approved North Dakota’s request for a Secretarial disaster designation for 47 counties related to late season rainfall and the October snowstorm. The declaration came on Friday, Nov. 8, the same day that Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., hosted Bill Northey, U.S. Department of Agriculture’s under secretary for farm production and conservation, to hear from producers at a roundtable and see the impacts of flooding and the early blizzard during a field tour in the Red River Valley.”
#2 Northwest Minnesota: “Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz asked the U.S. agriculture secretary on Thursday to declare a disaster for 12 counties of northwestern Minnesota where farmers are struggling through a very difficult harvest season. The governor said in a letter to Secretary Sonny Perdue that unrelenting bad weather has come on top of challenges farmers were already facing from low commodity prices and trade uncertainties. He told Purdue how the region’s crops have fallen victim to flooding, disease and freezing temperatures, leaving many producers unable to harvest them.”
#3 Iowa: “Last week, according to the Iowa weekly growing season report for the week ending Nov. 3, Iowa’s average temperature was 33 degrees, 12.6 degrees below normal, and with the southerly dip in the jet stream came multiple fast-moving winter-type systems through Iowa during the week, bringing a statewide average of 2.4 inches of snow. Mason City farmer Kevin Pope said with the early snow, all harvest has been halted.”
#4 Ohio: Three local counties are among the 14 in Ohio that the United States Department of Agriculture said are primary natural disaster areas. Champaign, Clark and Miami counties were added to a growing list of designated primary natural disaster areas, which means farmers in those counties can apply for disaster loans. Farmers are eligible only if they suffered a 30% loss in crop production or a physical loss of livestock, livestock products and real estate.
#5 The Red River Valley: “Near Grand Forks, Minnesota, successive nights of subfreezing temperatures from late October into early November caused an estimated $45 million in damage to around 9,000 acres of red and yellow potato crops in the Red River Valley. Wet conditions in October delayed the potato harvest that usually occurs around Oct. 1. This left about half of the red and yellow crops, which are grown for the fresh market, vulnerable to frost damage. This is what Ted Kreis, spokesman for the Northern Plains Potato Growers Association, told Fresh Plaza on Nov. 4.”
#6 Illinois: “Pritzker filed an appeal of the agency’s denial last week, saying the federal government is withholding assistance from 1.4 million Illinois residents affected by the flooding, which the Illinois Emergency Management Agency determined was the state’s worst in more than 25 years. The conditions caused delays for farmers planting spring crops, including corn and soybean, and prompted the U.S. Department of Agriculture to declare an agriculture disaster in the state in August.”
#7 Colorado: “There is no doubt that extreme weather has greatly impacted agricultural producers over the last several years, and 2019 is no exception,” said Clarice Navarro, executive director for Farm Service Agency in Colorado. “With record amounts of crops prevented from planting nationwide and other devastation, more than $3 billion is available through this disaster relief package passed by Congress and signed by President Trump in early June.”
#8 Kentucky: “The federal government has approved Kentucky’s request for a disaster declaration for counties in which farmers’ crops were negatively affected by this summer’s drought. In an Oct. 16 letter to Brian Lacefield, the state executive director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency, Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles asks that the federal agency consider a disaster declaration for Kentucky counties that “have suffered losses due to the extreme heat and drought.”
#9 South Carolina: “U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue recently designated six counties in South Carolina as natural disaster areas due to drought. They are: Bamberg, Calhoun, Kershaw, Lexington, Orangeburg and Richland.”
#10 Birch Hills County: “Birch Hills County has joined the County of Grande Prairie and Saddle Hills County in declaring an agriculture disaster. In a release, they say some farmers still have up to 50 percent of this year’s crop that is unharvested, while Hay crops in Birch Hills were harvested late, with some not able to be taken off the ground at all.”
#11 Crookston, Minnesota: “Sugar beet and potato farmers whose crops have been hard hit by excessive moisture this harvest converged on Crookston Tuesday, Nov. 5, to tell U.S. Rep. Collin Peterson about their unprecedented crop losses.”
#12 Idaho: There was sadness and dismay in eastern Idaho’s potato community this weekend as the 2019 harvest wound down and growers began tallying up their losses from October’s disastrous freeze while pondering what to do with the tons of unusable tubers it left behind. This season’s harvest will be marked by tons of decaying potatoes for which there is no home.
Are you starting to get the picture?
I could have easily doubled the size of that list. People all over the country are writing to me and telling me how bad things are in their areas, and ultimately all Americans will feel the pain of this crisis because all of us will soon be paying significantly higher prices for food at the grocery store.
And we don’t even know the full extent of this crisis yet, because the bitterly cold air currently ripping through the middle of the nation is going to cause even more crop failures…
The blast of record-breaking Arctic air that’s charging across the country will bring the growing season to a screeching halt in much of the southern and eastern U.S. this week.
Freeze watches have been posted as far south as the Panhandle of Florida, where Pensacola should see a low temperature of 31 degrees by early Wednesday morning. “Conditions can kill crops, new growth and sensitive vegetation,” the National Weather Service in Mobile, Alabama, warned.
A lot of people out there are still not taking this seriously.
Look, despite all of our advanced technology we still have to grow the food that we eat, and we can only grow food if the weather cooperates.
And as I discussed yesterday, experts are telling us that we should expect a very bitterly cold winter ahead of us.
This is a crisis that isn’t going away, and it is likely to continue to get worse in the months ahead.
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Past time to put some can goods for the up and coming tribulation.
So how much will gas prices rise with corn crops impacted? Sad that one is tied to the other. Even sadder that food supplies are being impacted yet assholes in the federal government have forced others to use much of that food to pander to environmentalists and line the pockets of corn refiners.
What about “global warming”?
It turns out that climate is driven by the sun, and that energy output from the sun has fallen off dramatically.
Look up the “Maunder minimum” and the “little ice age” for more information…
That’s why the same people who proclaimed the coming ice age in the 70s along with global cooling, and who were forecasting global warming in the 90s, now use the term “climate change.” How can you EVER be wrong with a term like that? The climate is ALWAYS CHANGING.
What’s our policy people?
If it comes from “officials” or “experts” it’s a lie.
Nothing clears the shelves in the grocery store like a manufactured panic.
True that!
Any forecast that even remotely suggests snow or ice in Atlanta will clear the shelves.
“on top of challenges farmers were already facing from low commodity prices”
This snippet tells you the entire premise of the article is bullshit. Commodity prices aren’t low if there is a shortage.
Disaster declarations are about buying votes.
Low commodity prices that were existent BEFORE the bad weather. Can put things in context?
Low commodity prices for the farmer but increased profits for the middle man and increased prices for the consumer. Been like that for hundred years.
Okay, discussed this with a neighbor who used to live in the flatlands (Chaffee) and knows about the farming programs.
People are under contract with certain companies for their crops most of the times, so if the produce is substandard due to weather/flooding/catastrophe?, crop insurance pays (Federal program.) If the produce is just substandard (Green Giant doesn’t buy knotty carrots) IT IS DESTROYED. Some of these corporations are FORBIDDEN by law from feeding the homeless.
Destroyed, I mean.
It all depends upon what the word “failure” means, I suppose.
I wonder if they allow farmers like HSF to pick up their rejected carrots and feed them to livestock? We are living in a time of regulatory insanity.
you ever hear of the San Juaquin Valley? Salinas River Valley? Coachella valley? and Besides those places, most of my fruits in my store have stickers that they are from central America. WTF are you being so silly for, of course it snows in Iowa…
Meanwhile, Domestic Pre-Crime goes into effect in January thanks to Trump?Barr.
This one is sliding in under the radar. Many of the pro-Trump websites I visit won’t touch this topic.
My heart goes out to all those farmers and their families who may be financially ruined by this combination of #noplant19 (spring so wet that record acres went unplanted) and #noharvest19 (late planted crops that didn’t make it maturity before winterkill).
But having seen this coming, I bought a modest 100 shares of grain ETF just about 2 months ago. We needed a long season given the late plant, and we got a short one. It seemed that the harvest would be bad, grain prices would have to go up. So I tried to hedge my own consumption risk a little. 2 grand worth of a grain etf.
I have lost money on that trade. I literally don’t understand exactly how. I fore saw what has happened over the last month and half. I took the right step, buying grains. I still lost money. How?
Answer: I did it through a wall street vehicle, and everything, absolutely everything, it touches is corrupt.
Bitter cold with significant crop damage? I’m reminded of the Carpenter’s tune ” we’ve only just begun”.
Grand Solar Minimum
Michael Snyder seems to be a one trick pony. His last article “Are You Ready For A Catastrophically Cold Winter? Here’s What The Mainstream Media Won’t Tell You…” basically said the same thing. This was my reply: “I talked to the father of my son’s future wife. He is from Iowa and has a number of corn farmer friends. He says that the corn is now dry, and the cold will not hurt it. They are behind on harvesting, but the crop is just fine. So this essay is dabbling in sensationalism.” That said, yes, it is getting colder, because of the sun.
I can’t take a lawyer like Snyder seriously on the topic of farming. He doesn’t have a clue what he’s writing about. I bet he’s never even been on a farm…what personal experience does he have in agriculture? There are enough valid, fearsome issues in the world today to write about…why create a fake one out of whole cloth?
regarding the corn still in the field,4 peak flavor 4 corn it needs to be eaten very soon after it ripens–
when it is being used 4 fuel,sweetener or any of it’s other uses, does not being picked when ripe affect how “efficiently” the corn is when used?
Dent corn is what’s mostly grown, used for animal food and ethanol. Corn harvested early can become sweet corn on the cob, left in the field it becomes hard and is stored in bins. My uncle used to run a feed store, he’d grow corn and mill it coarse and fine, depending on what it was going to be used for. Corn oil, corn starch and a host of other corn products are made from the hard ears.
There was a red corn that was grown almost exclusively for making moonshine, it almost went extinct when the last moonshiners died off but a farmer saved two ears and used that to carefully restore the corn. Known as Jimmy Red, the 2014 harvest made two barrels of fine bourbon, 370 bottles and the lot sold out in eleven minutes.
https://www.wideopeneats.com/types-of-corn/
Most years corn harvest begins when the kernel moisture reaches the lower 20 percentile. This year, because of the shorter season and early frost, the corn is being harvested at nearly 30 percent moisture. Test weight is lower which affects yield. Drying costs are significantly higher and natural gas and L.P. Sales were temporarily halted due to the cold snap and home heating demand. Farmers deal with the weather most years, this year is challenging, but they will survive. Most will anyway.
Sugar beets have been damaged by the freezing temps. They will not store well for later processing.
So, I’ve “reopened” my old facebook community page to show a few old and new pictures to a few old and new friends and all the friends of their friends and so on. It is a necessary evil in order to educate a community.
Not only have I found Women of AWACS (Look for a Calendar Girls type event!) I now have more than 1300 “friends” sharing really interesting photos.
This is a Crop Sign near Benton, Missouri… Aliens?