Dry and Desperate (Drought in Minnesota and Upper Midwest)

[wellstone dem]

http://www.startribune.com/462/story/582412.html

Across the Upper Midwest, from here in the scorched and dry Dakotas and through much of Minnesota into Wisconsin, a deep and unrelenting drought has a punishing grip on the land. It is withering crops and herds, and extending well beyond farm country to constrict businesses, limit recreation and lawn care, and even raise the price of breakfast foods.

"This drought is increasing in severity and increasing in the size of its footprint," Gov. Tim Pawlenty told about 75 forlorn farmers assembled last week on Chad Anvinson's farm near Oslo, in far northwestern Minnesota.

A half-inch of rain had fallen the day before. "It was the first significant rain we've had since May 10," Anvinson said.

The market here in Herreid, a town in the epicenter of the prolonged drought, usually moves 200 to 300 head of cattle a week this time of year. Now it's handling 2,000 or more a week, including entire herds being sold by ranchers who are giving up on land that has been in their families a century or more.

[n2doc]

1. Dust Bowl II?

I wonder if we will not be immune to the types of droughts hitting Africa and South America being generated by global change. I am sure some RW'er will try to pass this off as "part of a natural cycle".

[wellstone dem]

2. My 86 year old father

who was growing up in ND during the dust bowl, mentioned that what he is seeing in field today reminds him exactly of what he saw during his youth.

[mom cat]

9. Break out your old Woodie Guthrie Dust Bowl songs, and start

planting trees yesterday.

[NYC]

18. It was my understanding that the government implemented

changes that would prevent another dust bowl, not another drought, just another dust bowl, with the topsoil blowing away, etc.

That was supposed to be the reason for some of those farm subsidies to prevent farmers from planting certain things, and encouraging them to plant others. The government program was to prevent soil depletion.

That, of course, was a long time ago. I wouldn't be surprised if that program went astray.

Does anyone know?

I wasn't alive, but the dust bowl actually blew dust over NYC to the extent that sometimes it would look dark in the middle of the afternoon.

[NJCher]

23. cause of drought and have soil conservation programs waned?

Does anyone know?
Hmm, I was lucky. I remembered reading this article and was able to find it:

Now, more than 70 years later, a NASA scientist studying moisture and air patterns in the atmosphere believes he may have stumbled upon why the drought occurred in the first place.

The drought he is referring to is the one that caused the dust bowl storms. The article is entitled, "Scientists say ocean temperature shifts created '30s Dust Bowl."

Link: http://www.usatoday.com/weather/resources/climate/2004-04-18-dust-bowl_x.htm?POE=WEAISVA

As to your question about whether the programs designed to encourage farmers to use farming methods that discourage erosion have waned, see this paragraph, "Obstacles to Increased Soil Conservation"

at this link:

http://inside.bard.edu/politicalstudies/student/PS260Spring03/soil.htm




Cher

[NickB79]

30. They planted millions of trees in vast rows

They were designed to act as windbreaks, blocking the wind from gathering enough speed to tear the soil off the land. In the past 25 years, as industrial farming has boomed, they have been cut down.

[Beausoir]

3. My neighbor has lost everything. It's all gone.

We are desperate for rain in West Central MN.

The corn is brown and dried up.

[wellstone dem]

20. I drive every week from

Saint cloud to Willmar and to Cambridge, and the fields are enough to make me weep. And next year, our legal aid office, will be overflowing with small family farmers facing bankruptcy.

[Beausoir]

21. This is a catastrophe. I do believe that the Willmar area has received

at least some rain.

Wisconsin seems to be getting flooding rains for days on end.

But in Brainerd, Alexandria, Parkers Prairie, Staples and the Bertha-Hewitt area...this is truly a catastrophe.

[geardaddy]

25. Do you know how Redwood County is doing?

My girlfriend's 80-year-old dad leases his land to local farmers (he used to farm it, but is now too old). I'm not sure what he has this year, maybe soybeans.

[wellstone dem]

26. I'm not sure but

I think they've had a little more rain than central and northwest minnesota. Sorry I can't be of more help

[geardaddy]

27. Thanks.

I hope you guys get rain soon!

[CrispyQ]

4. "And with deserts will come famine."

Every year the deserts grow. Over grazing is a contributing factor. Howard Lyman devotes an entire chapter to grazing & it's impact on the land in his book Mad Cowboy. The chapter, titled Bovine Planet, ends with the above sentence.


on edit: It is so frustrating to watch those in power stick their head in the sand regarding the impact of our choices. I know too many people who have bought into the line that global warming is just a cyclical thing earth goes through & that human behavior has nothing to do with it. What a fucking cop out! "I'm not causing it so I don't need to change my behavior to reverse it." I have people in my family who believ this. :eyes: The fact that they are wrong only compounds my frustration. :banghead:

[yorkiemommie1]

15. people in my family too

namely dh and my brother. but after watching the tom brokaw special on Global Warming, my husband 'gets' it now.

[Massachusetts]

19. What a fucking cop out!

Agreed!

[AnOhioan]

5. And other areas of the country are experiencing

unprecedented flooding. We screwed with the environment and climate, now we are paying the price.

[Odin2005]

6. Here comes a new Dust Bowl...

[nancyr]

7. Droughts

A friend in Kansas told me yesterday that their ponds have dried up and it's been the hottest and driest 6 months on record. Global warming anyone?

[Ezlivin]

10. No thank you, we already have some

"Global warming anyone?"

It's so hot the trees are looking for shade.

[Amonester]

8. K&R ('cause THIS must go near the top of Greatest Page) Thanx!

AND everywhere it can go...

Time is "drying" out... :cry:

:grr:

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

[acmavm]

11. I really and truly understand all the focus on Israel's crimes in Lebanon

BUT I don't understand why more people haven't pushed to see this article on the greatest page.

Water, or the lack of, is the most important issue facing us in the future. That is if we're not killed of by a war that originated in the take over of our government by the neocons with the corrupt front man george bush**.

Water is in short supply. Some areas are dying because of lack of water. People just don't get it. They don't understand what the Dust Bowl was like. I didn't see it either, I just belong to a family who, when I was very young, talked about it A LOT.

And it's not like I don't remember being warned at a very very early age that we should (as someone else said here) PLANT TREES. That trees were one of the most effective ways of keeping the land arable. NONE OF THIS IS NEWS. What is news is the major push over the last few years to cut down and destroy every frigging single tree on the planet.

And then there's global warming. An ecological and environmental catastrophe brought to us compliments of the greedy conniving of world corporations and also because humans have gotten so damned lazy and weak. Here I am sitting in an air conditioned house pitching a bitch on a computer keyboard. How 21st century escapist can you get? I'm nice and comfortable while acting like I'm really doing something about the impending death of the planet.

Oh well, maybe the murderous intentions of the bush** administration and the Israeli government (and numerous others all over the world, but those two are the biggest) will be a blessing. We may not die a slow, thirsty hungry death living on a blighted planet. The powers that be may provide us with the means to escape becoming a planet of just two classes, the rich and powerful on one side and a slave labor class on the other. They might just blow us all to hell soon and we won't have to worry about it.

[cliss]

14. Thanks for pointing this out, acm.

WATER or the lack thereof, will be the biggest issue facing this planet. I was always expecting this to hit the average mentality about 10 - 20 years from now. I think we're there NOW.

Gerald Celente, the author of Trend Tracking, wrote in 1986 that "wars will be fought and won over water rights and energy like oil". How right he was.....

We have 6 1/2 billion people on this planet. The earth by itself (here I mean without petroleum) can only sustain about 2 billion people. Think of the croplands that need to be cultivated to feed all these hungry mouths...and then sustained drought.....

The US has always been considered to be the "breadbasket of the world" because of our incredible abundance. We have always been a net exporter of agricultural goods. The rest of the world has benefited....

Maybe not this year.....

[jwirr]

16. When I was growing up in NW Iowa there were groves of trees

about every 1/2 mile and the river banks had banks of trees. There was plenty of water. Slowly the farmers bought up their neighbors farm so they could get richer and the first thing they did was get rid of the old buildings and groves and farm right up to the river's edge. During that time water levels dropped steadily until farmers were often buying water to fill their wells. I know this because we lived near a "water plant" that pumped water out into trucks to be hauled to the farms. They need to start undoing this NOW.

[achtung_circus]

12. K & R

because I've seen drought in Saskatchewan and even though Ontario is cooking in record heat, the crops look good. We're surrounded by the Great Lakes, though.

I've ploughed crops under because there wasn't ANYTHING to even try to salvage. I've seen the grasshoppers come to eat the few forlorn stalks pushing thristily into the sky. I've seen cropland so degraded there was a 1 foot drop-off from the never-broken-by-the-plough margins of fields down into the cultivated areas.

I've seen the tops of fence posts protruding from blow ridges with new fence lines installed on top of the old, these a product of the 30's. I've seen Russian Thistle/tumbleweed blown up against fences so high that they covered the fence.

[High Plains]

13. Huron, SD--expected to be 110 today.

108 last Saturday.
107 yesterday.
106 the day before

I got here at the beginning of July and the crops looked good. Now, they are turning brown. It's much worse to our immediate West. Crops are dyin', farmers are cryin'.

[jwirr]

17. This is one of those issues that effects all of us. When these farmers

fail due to drought (or other situations) all of us will pay higher costs for food. God help us all.

[Tippy]

24. It's time for people to take to the streets...Marching on the WH

is in order..prices have already gone up and we have seen only the beginning when farmers and ranchers fail we all suffer. More and more people will put out of work...crime is climbing people are being killed in their homes for what little they have.

[Lindacooks]

22. This is almost as bad as 1988 in the cities.

But it's worse in the outstate areas. And the Boundary Waters Canoe Area is burning.

[MadHound]

28. It's not just the upper Midwest,

It's down here in Missouri, Kansas etc. Here in Mid Mo, we've been short on water since spring of '05 and beyond. Two dry winters in a row, dry springs, hot and dry summers. Farmers were ruined around here last year, and it might just be a bust this year too. I'm having to pump out over a thousand gallons of water a week to keep my orchard, garden and other plants healthy. We're lucky that it isn't quite as dry as last summer, but it is getting close.

What is really needed is a wet fall, a cold, snowy, wet winter(really cold, negative temps for a couple of weeks), and a wet spring. Recharge the ground, ground water and kill of the insects. Ticks and horseflys are abnormally thick here, which isn't good at all. Luckily throughout most of Missouri, we've had the good common sense to keep most of our trees. Sadly though, if it dustbowls out again, it looks like we'll be getting a good share of Kansas topsoil once more, since I've noticed the farmers there, where trees are scarce to begin with, started clearing them out years ago.

[laundry_queen]

29. It's also happening here.

I'm in northern BC and 95% of farmers in the area had to file for crop insurance a month ago. It's rained since, but for 2 months, not a drop, couple that with 30 degree celcius heat an 35 mph winds and it doesn't take long to parch the land. And unfortunately, the rain came too late to do any good.

[krkaufman]

31. How's them Republican Red Ink tax cuts looking now?

Vote Republican to get your pittance of a tax deferment, and usher in anti-Earth, anti-people policies that'll end up costing a LOT more than the cash handout used to buy your vote.