Nelson sees drought damage for himself

By Robert Pore, The Independent

St. Paul - U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., got a firsthand look at the devastating impact the drought is having on crops and pastures Thursday when he toured the Robert and Betty Dvorak farm south of St. Paul.

Dvorak, who grows corn, soybeans, alfalfa and wheat, said when describing the drought situation at his farm, "We need rain really bad."

That's no exaggerations. The National Weather Service in Hastings shows less than a half-inch of rain during the critical growing months of June and July in the St. Paul area. During that same time period last year, the area received more than 10 inches of rain.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Howard County farmers harvested 107,600 acres of corn last year with 90,900 acres being from irrigated land, which had an average yield of 167 bushels per acre. The 16,700 acres of dryland corn yielded, on average, 120.4 bushels per acre.

While the crop isn't in the bin yet, Dvorak said he hopes for only a 25 percent to 30 percent yield reduction on his irrigated corn, but his dryland corn is nearly a complete loss.

"Right now, we are all in this together," Dvorak said. "I really feel for the young farmers and the struggle they are going to have because, at my age at 64, it is pretty obvious I am going to make it and I am going to be all right because I'm lucky enough to have my equipment all paid for and those kinds of things."

But, Dvorak said, "it's the young farmers, who are really in it. They have commitments to make that are even more than mine. The point we need to get across is that we have to think about these young farmers today and their ability to make their livelihood."

While crop insurance will help farmers to some extent, the cost of farming is getting more and more expensive each and every year.

The USDA recently reported that farm and ranch production expenditures for Nebraska totaled $17.32 billion last year, up 10 percent from a year earlier. The total expenditures per farm or ranch in Nebraska averaged $370,085 in 2011, up from $333,475, an increase of 11 percent.

Also, the USDA reported that cropland values in Nebraska increased 36 percent from last year to $4,480 per acre, with dryland acreage averaging $3,500 per acre and irrigated cropland at $6,000. Pasture land, which was recently rated by the USDA at 89 percent poor or very poor, was $660 per acre, which is an increase $130 from a year ago.

In touring his alfalfa field, Dvorak told Nelson that he had two cuttings of alfalfa, but the current condition of the field "never recovered at all.

"There are little batches of hay that recovered, as you see. We are going to go ahead and harvest this for whatever we can get, but it will be so minimum that I'll cut this whole field and only get two bales of hay from it," Dvorak said. "But what are you to do? You have to be creative. That is what our forage looks like. It is really desperate."

Last year, Howard County farmers harvested 17,500 acres of alfalfa for an average yield of 4.5 tons per acre.

In a normal year, Dvorak's third cutting of alfalfa would be "knee high" by this time, compared to the spotty patches of hay growing in the fields now, he said.

"Normally, we get four cuttings, but this year I have gotten one and a half so far," he told Nelson.

The same is true in the area pastures around the Dvoraks' farm, which are dark brown from the lack of grass growth. March's warm weather brought grass out of dormancy, and it grew well until the available subsoil moisture was gone and was not supplemented by normal spring rains.

Farm Service Agency State Executive Director Dan Steinkruger, who also toured Dvorak's farm, announced on Thursday that an additional 15 counties, including Hamilton and Polk, have been designated as primary natural disaster areas due to the ongoing drought.

Steinkruger said that brings the total number of Nebraska counties with a primary designation to 76.

Nelson was briefed on Wednesday at the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) in Lincoln about the drought's severity, consequences and longevity.

Also, on Wednesday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that the average temperature for the contiguous United States during July was 77.6 degrees, 3.3 degrees above the 20th-century average, marking the hottest July and the hottest month on record for the nation.

The previous warmest July for the nation was in 1936, when the average U.S. temperature was 77.4 degrees. The warm July temperatures contributed to a record-warm first seven months of the year and the warmest 12-month period the nation has experienced since record keeping began in 1895.

Much of Howard, Custer, Sherman, Valley and Greeley counties have been rated D-4 or exceptional drought status. That indicates widespread crop/pasture losses and shortages of water in reservoirs, streams and wells, creating water emergencies

"We're not out of the woods yet," Nelson said. "The NDMC forecasts that this drought will probably last for months” maybe through October. But there's a silver lining here. If we've got a good idea of what we're in for, we can plan accordingly, and this means pushing the House to pass the Farm Bill. Nebraska farmers and ranchers can benefit from that disaster aid “during the drought and after it runs its course."

In June, the U.S. Senate passed a five-year Farm Bill “the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2012 " with bipartisan support. This legislation includes comprehensive, long-term programs to help farmers, ranchers and agricultural communities prepare for, withstand and recover from drought and other natural disasters. The House has not voted on the legislation.

"Nebraska ag producers are getting hit hard by this drought," Nelson said. "They deserve the certainty and benefits of a full five-year Farm Bill."