"The catastrophic flooding in the Midwest is forcing more farmers to consider a stark choice: quit or consolidate."
"Sometimes you have a bad year. That’s always been the reality of being a farmer or rancher. The business of growing crops and raising animals for profit requires two crucial elements for success that are out of farmers’ control: good weather, and good government policy. No one enters the agricultural profession thinking that every season is going to be successful.
But farmers and ranchers, particularly in the Midwest, have had more than just a bad year or two. Wisconsin’s dairy farms are in crisis, having lost about half of their net income between 2011 and 2018. They’re now shutting down at a record rate, due to low milk prices, overproduction, and President Donald Trump’s trade war with China and Mexico. That war has also caused billions in combined losses to Iowa’s soybean, corn, and hog industries. Nebraska farmers lost between $700 million and $1 billion in income last year. In Minnesota, farmer income fell 8 percent, making 2018 the worst year since the farm crisis of the 1980s.
And now the Midwest has been hit with historic, devastating floods. Excessive snow melt and rainfall, notably the “bomb cyclone” two weeks ago, have caused vast fields of corn, soy, and other crops to be washed away. Countless hogs, calves, and chickens have been killed. Iowa is estimating $1.6 billion in losses, Nebraska $1.3 billion, but the overall damage is hard to calculate because the floodwaters haven’t receded. It’s likely they’ll get worse. “The extensive flooding we’ve seen in the past two weeks will continue through May and become more dire,” Ed Clark, director of NOAA’s National Water Center, said in a statement to Vox."
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