August 13, 2019

Wild weather and prevented plant

Topic: Issues

August 13, 2019: The weather has been wild in 2019. But are the USDA prevented plant numbers accurate?

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What an interesting year of weather. Starting out with extreme cold this winter, some areas receiving record snowfall, then on top of that excessive snowfall there was excessive rains on top of frozen ground which created a lot of flooding throughout South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and many other states. And today, evidence of that flooding still exists.

About two weeks ago, as I drove to Lincoln, Nebraska, I went past fields that last year had 10-to-12-foot tall corn at the same time, 3-to-5-foot tall soybeans. And now those fields had 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 inches or more of water. In fact, I said to my daughter as we were driving, “Look over to the left. There’s a family, in their tractor cab driving their tractor through the water on their driveway to get to the high end to where their vehicles were parked.

And right here in North Dakota, it’s been an extremely interesting weather pattern, especially the last few weeks, with a fair amount of hail damage and wind damage, tornadoes where there haven’t been tornadoes for quite a few years. Excess moisture in certain areas. And yet, we do have areas in the state that are experiencing difficulties from drought. Some of these pockets are as small as maybe a township. Other ones cover a county or counties.

The USDA came out with a report of 19 million – record number – of prevent plant acres. And yet, their acres that they say are out there that are planted for corn and soybeans and other crops, and their yields that they reported, don’t paint the same picture as their 19 million acres of prevent plant.

This may be why I hear a lot lately from our farmer and rancher members; their mistrust in USDA. In fact, some of them have said to me, “Are they just another government agency which we can’t turn our back on?”

That’s a good question. It’s a question maybe worth investigating. It’s a question that, at NDFB, we should maybe ask our members. Give us your input. Let us know what your opinion is of the USDA. That information could be valuable to make a statement to this administration, and to our delegation, of how we feel improvements must be made within the agency which oversees what we do on our farms and ranches.

So, let us know. Give us your input. We would appreciate hearing from everyone what needs to change within this government agency that we must deal with on a daily basis.