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| The 48 states that have been attacked with the drought and high record setting temperatures. Source : http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/13/us/midwest-drought/index.html?hpt=us_c2
The author of this CNN news article Moni Basu has been able to compile clips of farmers that have been hit emotionally due to these harsh weather conditions thus affecting all their yields and the acres of land they harvest their crops on.
What effect do these harsh weather conditions have on the price and yield of corn and soybean? How do these fluctuations in prices, due to the drought, affect other commodities like milk etc? What are the farmers supposed to do in such conditions ? How do they survive in such miserable conditions ? How should the unending issue of climate change be addressed for a positive outcome in the near future ?
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Saturday, July 14, 2012
Recent Drought Across Americas 48 States Threatens Farmers and their Crops
Climate change, soaring temperatures, and destruction of crops thus leading to malnutrition, farmers not being able to support families and thus living on extremely low wages have always been pressing issues that haven't been tackled/addressed effectively. The CNN news article Drought stretches across America, threatens crops is about the high record setting temperatures; due to which farmers are worried about a poor yield of their crops, thus harvesting their crops way in advance with the optimistic view that they would receive a bountiful yield. This article has been presented with several example of such a situation. One such example presented by the author is, Don Vilwock, 61, a farmer in Indiana who did harvest his crops like corn and soybean early, but did not receive a bountiful yield because of no rain. The drought and unprecedented temperatures have damaged the corn and soybean yield to great extents.
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I noticed that the article put a lot of emphasis on the corn crops which it stated has 30% of the yeild listed as poor condition. We can see, based on supply and demand, this is driving the price of corn up. I saw this first hand at the feed store. My mom likes to feed the deer in our back yard so she buys the hunters' corn and from the time she started buying it about 12 years ago the price has gone up more than $10 per bag. That is a serious increase and the worst part is the farmers aren't creating demand to raise prices, they are struggling to meet their own needs with the sad amount crops they are harvesting.
ReplyDeleteThis was an enlightening article. I also want to point out that even Hawaii is orange in that map!
This article made me wonder how some/most of the farmers can survive under such cut throat conditions. I really liked your point that you mentioned in your comment, about the farmers NOT creating demand to raise prices when they themselves are struggling to meet their own needs, feed their own family etc. Farmers in such situations are, and will be miserable for a long time firstly because of the drought and secondly because of the increasing prices. This would ultimately lead to several cases of malnutrition as a result loss of plenty of lives; simply because they could not even feed themselves. Global warming thus climate change and irrational human activities are leading to several cases of failures that are affecting people/workers like the farmers as well as our surroundings/the environment. Would you be having any suggestions as to how we could curb this unending issue ? or even make a small positive change/impact for the near future ?
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