Farmers’ struggles continue with most of Kansas in ‘extreme’ or ‘exceptional’ drought

WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) – The newest info from the U.S. Drought Monitor exhibits Kansas is getting drier. Thursday’s report exhibits most of Kansas in both “excessive drought” or “distinctive drought.” Kansas farmers say this 12 months’s drought is among the many worst they’ve seen, impacting almost each crop and almost each county within the state.

“By no means witnesses something like this in our space,” Mulvane-area farmer Curt Hoobler stated.

Hoobler and his farmhand, Jared Sazoma say their wheat, corn and soybean crops haven’t obtained substantial rain in additional than 100 days and this fall’s harvest is among the many worst.

Hoobler stated his soybeans are normally double in measurement than they’re this 12 months. This 12 months, they’re sufficiently small that they wouldn’t normally make the minimize. The prolonged drought has impacted each nook of the farming trade, together with those that transport what’s harvested.

Driver Phillip Hundley stated he worries about whether or not he’ll have work hauling grain within the coming months.

Apart from the farmers are those taking it the more severe, we now have a scarcity of labor proper now within the grain trade,” he stated. “We receives a commission by what number of masses we get carried out in the present day by the bushel, and that impacts us on the finish of the day. So, it’s simply been powerful.”

With greater than two million Kansans now residing in areas experiencing excessive or distinctive drought, Kansas Farm Bureau Director of Commodities Mark Nelson stated it’s been greater than 10 years since we’ve seen circumstances like this. However this time, it’s much more widespread.

When Kansas farmers aren’t producing, prices stay excessive.

“We’re not going to be contributing loads of provide that’s going to decrease the costs,” Nelson stated.

Hoobler stated as a farmer, all he can do is hope for rain earlier than winter to deliver higher outcomes for spring.

“We’ve got to hope that after we do get rain that it’s a minimum of a minimal of a half-inch rain,” he stated.

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