So far, 2019 has been a horrific year for farmers in the United States. Major flooding, an unnecessary trade war, and skyrocketing bankruptcies have left many farmers with a tough decision. One that will impact all of us.
According to Farm and Dairy, rain and flooding have limited any field work, and as of May 26, 2019, only 58% of the nation’s corn crop had been planted, and only 29% of U.S. soybeans were in the ground. In Ohio, only 22% of the corn had been planted, compared to a five-year average of 78% by this time, and only 11% of soybeans were planted, compared to a five-year average of 55%. Few farmers have been able to make hay or chop any forage crops. Fields that were planted in a rare weather window now need to be replanted, which is a huge financial burden for already cash strapped farmers.
Bankruptcies and suicides are rising at alarming rates among farmers. Part of the blame goes to the trade war, however, most farmers just don’t have any money and can’t continue. Bankruptcy is their only option. And when farmers grow less food, we all pay more under the basic economic law of supply and demand.
https://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/farmers-in-america-are-killing-themselves-in-record-numbers_06262018
Patty Edelburg, the vice president of the Washington-based NFU group, which says it represents some 200,000 U.S. farms, appeared on Fox News in May and detailed what she stated was the dire state of American farming. Amid falling income and commodity prices, farmers have been forced to make hard choices. Those choices are resulting in a surging number of bankruptcies, increased financial stress, and suicide in the agricultural community.
“It has been insane,” Edelburg told America’s Newsroom anchors Sandra Smith and Jon Scott. “We’ve had a lot of farmers—a lot more bankruptcies going on, a lot more farmer suicides. These things are highlighting many of the news stories in our local news.” But the flooding is also taking its toll. Farmers are being hit from all sides, and that is not a good thing considering they grow the food most of us eat.
“Farmers are in the midst of six consecutive years of falling commodity prices and depressed farm income,” Perdue told Newsweek in May. “In that time we’ve definitely heard increased concern from our membership, and other organizations have as well, related to folks in their community not doing well in terms of their mental health.”
We suggest that you begin preparations for a potential food shortage. It never hurts to have extra food on hand or to learn to grow your own. An excellent resource is The Prepper’s Blueprint by Tess Pennington. The book The Prepper’s Cookbook is also a great resource for those who may need to learn to cook foods on hand in the event of a food crisis. The book contains 300 Recipes that will help you turn your emergency food into nutritious, delicious, life-saving meals.
unnecessary trade war? really? you like be owned?
I know a lot of people are thinking it’s all the commercial corn and soybean growers that are hurting and think so what. But it’s all of us. Small farms, home gardeners. We have had so much rain and so little sun nothing is growing well at all. .
Make quotas, at a predetermined price…
Report losses, at a predetermined price…
Choices, choices.
Who is John Galt!
I live next to him. He is a very quiet neighbor.
Grow rice you morons!
GROW RICE YOU MORONS!
The mainstream media haven’t been giving as much attention to this as the situation deserves. We’ve had bad weather affect crop yields in the past but not like this and not in so many places at the same time. The planting is delayed in some places which means a shorter growing season and less favorable growing conditions. Some of the farmers will plant for crop insurance and delivery contract requirements;they’ll go through the motions. The figures on acreage planted versus previous years will understate the problem. Also, bear in mind that harvests are rated on quality. Wheat, for example, is rated as fit for “human consumption” or not. The shorter growing season, the lower the quality of the crop generally. At the risk of sounding alarmist, we should be concerned.
By the math, how can there possibly be a glut, for the foreign market, and a shortage for the domestic market. Doesn’t it seem like a social justice narrative, telling us there’s not enough eat?
“Few farmers have been able to make hay or chop any forage crops.”
These commodities are put in animal feed. You told us, there was so much, it rotted, last year. There is a weed problem, allegedly beyond the capacity of manual labor. (Unemployed.) Water, brought-in from great distances will be overtaxed, under the assumption that local ground water would be inadequate. (It flooded.) You parlay this into a protein shortage, probably, because every moment of your workday has been put to paper, first, by some commissar.
I see a more-apt reason for self sufficiency in the misallocation of plentiful resources.
YEP{!!!
I just hope the American farm that did get his crops in remembers to sell to the Americans first. The rest of the world can just suck it up and start to be a productive as the USA.
Sgt.
I am not saying this, expertly. Maybe, this can be tested. Before the grassland degenerated, it was originally silted? A low, flat area, full of fertile dirt, for some reason?
The daily Mac Slavo absolute nonsense propaganda report for the weak minded paranoid.
It’ll be about money…profits. A created crisis to raise prices. No more foreign owners as food producers!
LET THEM EAT CAKE!
Shortage or no shortage I’m still buying and stacking. Whoever refuses to prep is inept.
first off they aint Farmers. The are commody growers. agri buisnesse’s subsidized by the Dept of Ag. In 1980 it was so dry there was no harvest. many commody growers went bust. a bigger one farmed that land. We are having a magnetic pole shift. and shtf is happening in some places. If those folks did not prep and where not prudent enough to weather one poor season (So What?) good riddance. I know a guy who’s family owns land between the levee and the Mississippi river. His father row cropped thar land. dealt with flooding his entire life. When his father died they had to have a auction and after selling all the equiptment still didn’t recoup enough to pay the debt. So this son inherited the land and debt. no equiptment to plant on risky land. What did he Do? He built a homemade bandsaw saw mill. Cut the big cottonwoods at the premeter of the fields. sawed them into boards. found a nich market selling to casket makers. worked hard and became debt free. Now decades later him and I are both old men. He still owns that land. debt free. and he isn’t worried about this year’s flooding his land is all in trees. He sells hunting leases, rents duck blinds. his sons harvest timber and saw part it into lumber. They sell valuable logs on the foreign market. No debt no worry’s. They have the best prep there is. They are Self Reliant and the required Know How.
Good points all. I don’t like how modern farmer are held up as some kind of American dream, when the American farm system is complete Socialism. The government and big agri-business are the landlords and the farmer is a serf that has less autonomy than sharecroppers of the Great Depression had. I really get tired of the “No Farmers, No Food” bumper stickers, when what it really means is “keep paying your taxes, or this nation will starve in one year”.
“We suggest that you begin preparations for a potential food shortage.” Good advice, especially if you haven’t ever prepped.
The farmers being wiped out by the weather is indeed a tragedy on more than one level.
As to available food in the coming year, one of the things that has kept food commodity prices low in recent years is the stored carry over grain in silo’s from year to year. I’ve seen a couple of stories indicating a lot of that carry over storage has been wiped out by the floods, although commodity grain prices are up only slightly. So, it may be too soon to see the actual impact on food grains and animal feeds.
Navy,
My understating is the flooding has not made that big of a dent in our domestic food supplies, as you confirm with your comment about commodity prices.
The biggie is the effect on the lives of farmers and number farmers forced into bankruptcy.
Good for them, the GMO farming toxic waste producing, Monsanto owned mental midgets! Grow some rice then dumb ass!
Gen,
“USA Rice represents rice producers in the six largest rice-producing states of Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Texas”
I think only Missouri is flooding just now and I don’t think there is anybody from Missouri commenting on this site.
Enduring the Tribulation is all about having a full flask of food. And stopping the Tares from taking it. We’ve been warned.
Grow rice you morons!
As of June 4th, the Arkansas and Mississippi Rivers were at full flood stage with levees breaking. This is causing problems for farmers in Oklahoma and Arkansas. The tributary rivers that drain into the Arkansas and Mississippi are also affected. The crop yields from these states will be affected. China is experiencing similar planting delays in its grain belt and is having a plague of army worm caterpillars attacking its grains. There are countries having excellent grain crops like Brazil but the harvests can’t make up for the reductions in harvests in the United States and China. Food prices are definitely going up but how much?