OTTUMWA — Skyrocketing prices, dormant pastures and no end to the drought in sight means farmers are in the dark as to what will happen next.

This is the hottest start for the month of July and the summer season in 76 years, according to the weekly crop report from the National Agricultural Statistics Service of the USDA, released this week.

“This is very, very serious,” said David Kastengren, Wapello County Farm Service Agency county executive director. “The majority of the drought is concentrated over the Corn Belt. I feel for every farmer in the state. It’s amazing the depth and scope of this drought.”

In Ottumwa, the high temperature last week reached 103 degrees with zero precipitation.

Kastengren said he’s concerned for producers this year.

“The one thing we’ve got to have is farmers,” Kastengren said. “Everybody likes to eat. As a farmer, it’s not something that’s easily learned or easy to get in and out of. When we have a bad year, it serves in everybody’s best interest to make sure we have people there for the next crop.”

Livestock

Bob Wells, Iowa State University Extension farm and agriculture management field specialist in Oskaloosa, said success in the livestock industry is directly related to what happens with crops.

“Because the crop is going to be less than expected, feed costs are starting to get very high again,” Wells said. “So the margins are becoming very small, and in the case of pork and cattle producers, they’re being squeezed.”

The big concern, he said, is that producers are not able to feed their animals.

“The other thing complicating this is the high cost of corn and ethanol plants that are slowing production,” Wells said. “That affects livestock, since there are less distillers dry grains to supplement hay and pastures.”

Producers are receiving less distillers dry grains that they could be using to increase the digestibility of poor-quality hay, which they’ll be harvesting over the next three to four months.

Thankfully, Wells said he hasn’t heard of livestock deaths, though Kastengren is surprised none have been reported.

“Our producers take really good care of their livestock and will cull their herds before they let that happen,” Wells said.

Last year’s Livestock Indemnity Program, which helped producers who had livestock die due to the severe hot weather, is also not available this year since it sunset last fall.

“There’s a pretty good push right now and an expectation that the program could be grandfathered in,” Kastengren said. “Producers need to have their records set up now so when the program is available, we’ll be there to help them.”

Kastengren said livestock deaths began at about this time last year.

“A lot of the time, damage from excessive heat is cumulative,” Kastengren said. “I’m really hopeful we won’t see anything. But if something does happen, we want to be able to help.”

Pasture

Most of Iowa’s pastures have gone dormant due to the high temperatures, Wells said.

“Pastures are done,” Kastengren said. “There is very little forage left. They’re all burned up.”

Kastengren said Wapello County farmers will be able to apply for emergency haying and grazing of Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) land on Aug. 2.

CRP is a government program that takes highly erodable land out of production and farmers receive payment for not farming it. The restriction is they cannot harvest a crop off of it unless the county has been given disaster declaration.

Wapello County has not yet received a disaster declaration.

“Every producer I talk to right now, no one knows exactly where they’re at,” Kastengren said. “A lot of rows look decent from the road if you’re driving past them in the morning. But you really need to drive by them in the afternoon, around 2:30, when drought stress really shows up.”

Farm Bill

What’s surprised many producers, Kastengren said, is that there is no disaster assistance program in place after the 2008 Farm Bill’s disaster assistance program sunset last fall.

“So there is no disaster program for crop production effective for producers for this year,” he said. “I’m really hoping it’s extended for one year.”

The farm bill that has passed out of the U.S. Senate “is not really something I can comment on very well until it becomes law,” Kastengren said.

“But down here in Wapello County, it’s one of the more challenging places in Iowa to farm,” Kastengren, who has been here for 10 years through several disasters, including floods and droughts, said. “It’s more challenging to farm down here than other areas of the state basically because of the amount of moisture we get.”

Because of this, producers’ Actual Production History (APH) has been declining, “and that’s what they’re paid off of.”

“So every year a producer has a reduced crop, their safety net is reduced for the next time, and in multiple years, it adds up,” Kastengren said. “Who knows what the Farm Bill is going to be.”

Alfalfa, oat hay

“The bright spot in this is the first two and a half or three cuttings of alfalfa hay we’ve had this year have been extremely good quality,” Wells said.

Alfalfa has done well in southeast Iowa because it’s in established fields, Wells said. Alfalfa plants have a well-established root system — some as deep as 17 feet — which allows them to take some of the moisture that’s not available to corn and soybeans.

Another positive is that most of the oat hay has been very good quality, Wells said.



Iowa crops in “very poor” or “poor” conditions last week:

• Soybeans: 30 percent

• Corn: 40 percent

• Hay: 56 percent

• Pasture and range: 79 percent

— Information courtesy of USDA National Agricultural Statistical Service, Iowa Field Office