Southwest Kansas water crisis through eyes of a Liberal farmer: ‘This drought is real’ – Kansas Reflector

TOPEKA — Farmer Tom Willis’ try and get some sleep forward of testimony to a U.S. Senate agriculture committee learning drought was interrupted by a 3 a.m. phone name from again house.

Oddly timed calls sometimes imply cattle are free on a freeway or an intoxicated cowboy wants assist, Willis stated. As a substitute, his spouse telephoned in the course of the night time to share excellent news that it was raining in Liberal. In Willis’ space of operations in southwest Kansas, 1.2 inches of moisture fell. It represented the primary measurable precipitation there since August 2021, he stated.

Soggy floor in and round 7,500 acres farmed by the Willis household in 4 Kansas counties was a aid in a area pissed off by the dry spell. Lack of rain has elevated reliance on the already-stressed underground water useful resource generally known as the Ogallala Aquifer. Drought is predicted to decrease corn, wheat, soybean and sorghum yields in Kansas on the similar time crop enter prices of gasoline and fertilizer have escalated.

“This drought is actual,” Willis informed the Senate Agriculture Committee in Washington, D.C. “The issue is actual. It can’t be kicked down the highway. It can’t be kicked down the highway, not less than in western Kansas.”

Willis was within the nation’s capital with Earl Lewis, chief engineer of water sources on the Kansas Division to Agriculture, to testify Tuesday about persistent water woes.

U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall, a Kansas Republican on the agriculture committee, stated alarming shortages in far West inhabitants facilities had acquired regular public consideration. He stated points with the Arkansas River, which winds by means of Kansas, had been vital however much less well-known.

“Via a lot of Kansas, sadly, it’s like a four-wheeler path,” Marshall stated.

He stated one-third of Kansas was experiencing extreme drought. One consequence, the senator stated, was a projected decline of 100 million bushels on this 12 months’s wheat harvest. Shrinking the harvest by one-third may price breadbasket farmers in Kansas about $1 billion, he stated.

“This lack of rain not solely hurts farm manufacturing at its most vital time, but in addition adversely impacts ranchers and households who fall sufferer to raging wildfires throughout the plains, incurring tons of of hundreds of {dollars} misplaced in property, and at their worst, houses and lives,” Marshall stated.

Lewis, the water engineer on the state Division of Agriculture, informed federal lawmakers the Western States Water Council representing Kansas and 17 different states believed Congress had an vital function in responding to drought. He stated assortment, evaluation and distribution of rain information to all ranges of presidency and particular person producers was important to formation and acceptance of intervention insurance policies.

He stated native, state and federal officers should collaborate on drought methods and authorities ought to share prices of remediation with farmers on the lookout for a method out of the disaster. Federal packages centered on soil conservation may be tweaked to position extra emphasis on water administration and irrigation points, he stated.

“The state of affairs within the West is dire,” Lewis stated. “The state of affairs on the Nice Plains is comparable in the truth that over time we’re receiving much less precipitation and are challenged by drought.”

Lewis stated drought prompted farmers to pump further water from the Ogallala Aquifer, an intuition that contributed to a extra speedy decline in that water supply.

“If we don’t act we’ll find yourself with a state of affairs of that useful resource going away in addition to agriculture manufacturing related to that irrigation,” he stated.

Willis stated in his first 12 months farming in southwest Kansas he irrigated his crops to the extent that it lowered the water degree in his wells by a median of 10 toes. He stated he knew that fee was unsustainable, however he additionally understood investments in conservation needed to be balanced with the should be worthwhile.

He changed irrigation sprinkler techniques, set moisture probes deep within the floor and turned to telemetry to higher monitor operation of water wells. Distant controls had been added to circle irrigation gear so sprinklers might be immediately shut down if there was a mechanical drawback with a pivot. His corn-soybean-corn crop rotation was altered to incorporate sorghum, a hearty plant he stated was fitted to dry southwest Kansas.

He stated modification of the farm’s method to water consumption saved 1.2 billion gallons over a six-year interval. That represented a 50% discount in water use with out sacrificing web farm earnings, he stated.

“That’s actual water and that can be there for my son, for my grandson and for the lifestyle that we selected to reside,” Willis stated.

Willis, chief govt officer at ethanol producer Conestoga Power Holdings, urged the U.S. Senate to reform federal farm support packages in order that they had been versatile sufficient to allow farmers to reply to seasonal shifts in environmental and financial circumstances. He stated federal incentives within the new farm invoice may assist persuade producers to undertake expertise or practices able to conserving floor and floor water.