Low yield or no yield

By Bob Krumm

rkrumm@ohcommedia.com

It will be sev­eral months before the results of this year’s drought can be assessed mon­e­tar­ily, but Con­gress­man Bob Latta got a sense of an impend­ing dis­as­ter last month.

Latta is no stranger to farm­ing. His fam­ily has been farm­ing in North­west Ohio for well over a cen­tury. But farms in Ohio and the Mid­west are a long way from the Wash­ing­ton, D.C. belt­way. That’s why the Con­gress­man, accom­pa­nied by Direc­tor of Ohio Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture David Daniels had their feet in the fields of sev­eral North­west Ohio farms.

Con­gress­man Latta observed this was “the worst drought in 56 years,” adding, “Williams County crops look absolutely awful.”

Daniels reported that “90 per­cent of Ohio’s farm­land have less than ade­quate mois­ture to raise a fully mature crop.”

A Daniels staffer showed a photo taken on a Pauld­ing County farm, show­ing a crack in the dry ground mea­sur­ing three feet in depth.

Some of the most stag­ger­ing num­bers they heard con­cern corn. On some farms it might not be low yield, but no yield.

In a nor­mal grow­ing sea­son Ful­ton County farms aver­age about 160 bushels an acre. This year yields will prob­a­bly aver­age 40 bushels — a loss of 120 bushels.

If corn aver­age is $8 a bushel, an acre will only pro­duce $320 in rev­enue. (Keep in mind, this is not profit, because expenses need to be sub­tracted first.)

In a nor­mal year a farmer’s har­vest might bring in $1,280 per acre. One Delta area farmer said he has 1,260 acres of corn and in a good year that would result in sales of about $1.6 mil­lion. This year he expects the crop to only bring in about $403,000, a loss of nearly $1.2 million.

The cost to pro­duce an acre of corn runs between $700-$800. This includes seed, fer­til­izer, insec­ti­cide, her­bi­cide, equip­ment and cost to fuel and oper­ate equipment.

It costs about $1,120 to fuel a com­bine, which uses about a gal­lon of diesel per acre and a tank of it in as lit­tle as two or three days.

Corn ear size is about half the diam­e­ter and half the length of a nor­mal. The first cou­ple rows on the edge of a field look mis­lead­ingly healthy because there’s less com­pe­ti­tion for mois­ture, and there is more air move­ment. Take just a cou­ple steps into a field, like Latta and Daniels did, and the real impact can be seen. Sev­eral ran­dom ears held as few as seven or eight kernels.

Latta is tak­ing sam­ples back to Wash­ing­ton, D.C. to show agri­cul­tural com­mit­tee members.

What about soybeans?

Soy­beans are bet­ter off, but noth­ing to shout about. While late July and early August rains are help­ing fill pods, har­vests are still expected to be down by as much as 25 to 30 per­cent, or more, in many areas.

If it wasn’t for crop insur­ance, some area farm­ers say they couldn’t sur­vive to make it into next year. How­ever, there’s no insur­ance for live­stock producers.

Live­stock pro­duc­ers really pinched

Live­stock pro­duc­ers began dip­ping into their sup­ply of win­ter hay early, mean­ing they’ll be run­ning out long sooner than nor­mal. As a result, the farm­ers in North­west Ohio, and most of the state, are des­per­ate to find other sources for hay and feed, which will have to be shipped into Ohio.

Dis­cus­sions at the state level are under­way to increase weight lim­its on trucks bring­ing in feed. The state is also con­sid­er­ing allow­ing some lim­ited graz­ing on pub­lic land.

Ohio Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture, in con­junc­tion with the OSU Exten­sion Office, Farm Bureau and oth­ers, will be hold­ing regional meet­ings to assist farm­ers in find­ing sup­plies of feed.

Drought means higher prices at the market

Latta and Daniels fore­see ris­ing prices ahead with low sup­plies of feed and reduc­tion in herd sizes increas­ing the price of meat, eggs, and dairy products.

Some live­stock pro­duc­ers have already begun sell­ing off their herds. This will flood the mar­ket with cheaper meat in the short term, although Daniels says putting too much into the mar­ket at once may be too much for retail­ers to absorb.

He also observed that it requires time to rebuild a herd. One county live­stock pro­ducer said he recently bought Hol­stein calves, which take 16 months to mature. The com­bi­na­tion of low meat sup­plies and higher feed costs trans­lates into higher prices for consumers.

Many North­west Ohio live­stock farm­ers are cur­rently feed­ing fat cat­tle with shelled corn. Find­ing suf­fi­cient sup­plies is a chal­lenge. Some are con­sid­er­ing cut­ting corn fields for silage. The prob­lem with silage is that com­pared to other nutri­tion sources, such as shelled corn, the calo­rie lev­els are about two to two-and-a-half times lower. Cat­tle don’t fat­ten up, mean­ing lower prices at the auc­tion house.

Farm bill exten­sion, dis­as­ter relief

There is a dou­ble whammy this year. Besides the drought, the five-year farm bill is set to expire and there is lots of debate to cut $31 to $35 bil­lion from the bill.

Latta’s dis­trict is the largest in the state with the most farm­land. Dis­trict 5 cov­ers 12 coun­ties in North­west Ohio and por­tions of four other coun­ties. Agri­cul­ture is a vital part of the areas’ eco­nomic base. Thus, the new farm bill could have a huge impact on his district.

At the very least, he is hop­ing leg­is­la­tors approve a one-year exten­sion to allow farm­ers to get through the drought.

Gov­er­nor John Kasich has declared dis­as­ter areas in many of Ohio’s coun­ties, which allows farm­ers to qual­ify for dis­as­ter relief funds that will help them until suf­fi­cient mois­ture returns to the fields.

Bob Krumm is past pub­lisher of The Ful­ton County Expositor.

Posted by Rob Treynor on Sep 2 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.