Drought in High Plains the worst some farmers have ever seen
BEULAH, N.D. - Drought in North Dakota is laying waste to fields of normally bountiful food and hay crops and searing pastures that typically would be home to multitudes of grazing cattle.
Some longtime farmers and ranchers say it’s the worst conditions they’ve seen in decades — possibly their lifetimes — and simple survival has become their goal as a dry summer drags on without a raincloud in sight.
“We’ve never been in this sort of boat, honestly,” said Dawn Martin, who raises beef cattle with her parents and husband in the southwestern part of the state, an area the U.S. Drought Monitor says is in “extreme” drought.
“We’re just trying to make it through and work it out,” she said. “There are a lot of people in the same boat. I don’t know what the answer is.”
The drought’s impact likely will be felt not just by farmers but also consumers, state Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring said. Agriculture in North Dakota is an $11 billion a year industry, and the state leads the nation in the production of nearly a dozen crops.
“It’s going to affect bread at the grocery store counter,” Goehring said, though he didn’t put a figure on how much costs might go up for shoppers. “Dry beans — navies, pintos — are going to be affected to a degree. Canola, that production is going to be cut, and that’s going to have an effect on vegetable oil.”
The latest Drought Monitor map shows nearly all of western North Dakota in severe or extreme drought, conditions that extend into northern South Dakota and northeastern Montana. Most of the rest of North Dakota is in moderate drought or abnormally dry.
John Weinand has had less than 2.5 inches of rain on his farm near Beulah, which is northwest of Bismarck, since the beginning of May. He’s used to getting more than 3 inches in June alone.
Weinand figures his wheat crop will be half what it usually is. As for his field peas, he expects to harvest fewer than 100 pounds per acre, compared with a typical 3,000 pounds per acre. He won’t even try to sell his barley; he’s already rolled it up into hay to feed his cows.
“If we get some rain we’ll have some corn and soybeans, but at this point it doesn’t look very promising,” he said.
The situation is much the same across ranching country, with the best hay production about a fourth of normal.
More than one-third of North Dakota’s staple spring wheat crop and nearly three-fourths of the state’s pasture and rangelands are rated in poor or very poor condition, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. USDA estimates spring wheat production will be down 27% from last year; oats, barley, durum wheat and winter wheat also will be down dramatically. The production reports released Wednesday for South Dakota and Montana are much the same.
If the drought persists into next year, it could start pushing producers out of business, officials and farmers say. But one year of extreme conditions, though a hardship, will be manageable for most.
“We’ll make it through,” Martin said. “We’re a resilient bunch.”