The Midwest and perhaps other areas of the US is experiencing a record heat wave and drought. I talked with two NRCS employees this week who said that there will not only be millions but problably more like billions given for farm drought relief. This is on top of the payments already owed by the gov't for crop insurance payments as a result of the drought. The NRCS/USDA expects the drought to continue perhaps through next year and farmers are worried it may even run longer. The last few years the US gov't subsidized farmers and made many big farmers rich as crop prices were high, there was excellant yields in some states, and subsidy payments were handed out. Just as the gov't thought to drop off the subsidy program the drought hit. Since many farmers made big money in the last few years and since it was a wet spring last year they tiled much ground that had never before been tiled. Now they wished they had back every drop they tiled out not to mention all the cost of tile and labor. The wetlands are very important to ecology of the land and even impacts rainfall. Farmers have contributed to the turning the midwest inot a desert but tiling and trying to farm every square foot of soil. In areas of the Midwest where there has never before been water restrictions people in town are advised to take quick showers and by law they can only water lawns and wash cars every other day.
This will affect grain prices, fuel prices, food prices and certainly meat prices. Farmers are wanting to sell their corn for silage but there are not enough bovine in all the country to feed that much silage to and without corn in the ear the silage will be of a lesser quality. In many areas the fields will be disked under.