Heat and Drought Impacting Missouri Farm Operations

Heat and Drought Impacting Missouri Farm Operations

Those of us who live in Missouri are familiar with the adage, "If you don't like the weather, just wait a few minutes." Unfortunately, the severe heat and drought many Missourians are experiencing this summer seems to be repeating last year's extreme weather and it is taking a toll on people all across the state.

Over the past few weeks, residents of Missouri's Fourth Congressional District have been contacting me to share their concerns about how our current stretch of hot, dry weather is impacting their farm operations. Extreme weather can cause particular problems for farmers, their crops, and their livestock. According to the Missouri Agricultural Statistics Service, this season's heat and dry weather are damaging pastures and threatening the development of corn and soybeans.

Livestock producers are worried about hay and water shortages. Lack of rain has forced cattle farmers across the state to switch to supplemental hay feeding as pastures lay dormant and pond levels continue to drop. Several farmers have called to tell me that they have to sell their cattle because they don't have hay or enough money to buy hay to get them through this.

Many farmers are in a precarious financial situation because they have hardly had a chance to recover from the severe drought that affected much of the Midwest during 2005. Although agricultural disaster assistance was provided to producers in the Gulf states whose operations were devastated by Hurricane Katrina, I was very disappointed that farmers in other parts of the country suffering through drought, a different kind of natural disaster, did not receive federal help.

In July, USDA's Farm Service Agency reported that no Missouri counties met the requirements to be considered as experiencing extreme drought. I recently contacted the top official at Missouri's Farm Service Agency headquarters in Columbia to request a detailed update of drought conditions in each of the 25 counties that make up Missouri's Fourth Congressional District. In addition, I asked for a report on what steps have been taken in each county with regard to possible secretarial disaster declarations for 2006 agricultural losses associated with drought.

I have also written to Missouri's Governor to urge his office to work with local and county officials in the Fourth District and the USDA Farm Service Agency to assess the potential need for a USDA secretarial disaster request. Hopefully the weather will break and a slow, steady rain will ease the drought before a formal relief request becomes necessary. But if conditions warrant, I want Missouri farmers to be eligible for federal assistance in a timely way.

http://www.house.gov/skelton/col060813.htm