Flooding in the American Midwest destroys crops*

By Susan Saulny
Monday, June 16, 2008

NEWHALL, Iowa: Here, in some of the best soil in the world, the stunted
stalks of Dave Timmerman's newly planted corn are wilting in what
sometimes look more like rice paddies than the plains, the sunshine
glinting off of pools of collected water. Although time is running out,
he has yet to plant all of his soybean crop because the waterlogged soil
cannot support his footsteps, much less heavy machinery.

Timmerman's small farm has been flooded four times in the past month by
the Wildcat Creek, a tributary of the Cedar River which overflowed its
banks at a record 31 feet last week, causing catastrophic damage in
nearby Cedar Rapids and other eastern Iowa towns and farmsteads.

"In the lean years, we had beautiful crops but they weren't worth much,"
Timmerman said, surveying his farm, which his family has tended since
his great-great-grandfather. "Now, with commodity prices sky high,
mother nature is throwing us all these curve balls. I'm 42 years old and
these are by far the poorest crops I've ever seen."

And he added, "It's going downhill by the day."

As the floodwaters receded in some areas, they rose in others.

On Sunday, residents in Iowa City — where the Iowa River was nearing its
projected crest and rising downstream — were struggling with the waters,
which submerged part of the University of Iowa's campus and sent workers
scrambling to move books and paintings from the university's Arts Campus.

"Certainly Iowa City has never seen anything like this before," said
Linda Kettner, a university spokeswoman. "A lot of people have been
displaced. It's a very poignant time. And at the University of Iowa,
we've never faced a challenge like this."

In Cedar Rapids — where the Cedar River crested at 31 feet on Friday —
the water receded Sunday, but most of the central streets were still
flooded.

But officials were worried that worse might lie ahead as the rain-gorged
tributaries spill into the Mississippi River system, threatening scores
of communities. The Mississippi is expected to crest by midweek or days
later.

For Timmerman and the thousands of other farmers who have seen their
fields turn to floodplains, the rain and flooding could not have struck
at a worse time, and their plight extends far beyond the Midwest.

Last week, the price of corn rose above $7 a bushel on the commodities
market for the first time, and soybeans rose sharply, too, reacting to
the harsh weather hampering crop production across the Midwest. In
addition to Iowa, the farming states of Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and
Minnesota have suffered an unusual level of flooding this year.

Soaring global demand in addition to the increased use of corn for
ethanol, an alternative fuel, have shrunk the worldwide supply of
staples that are the core of practically every continent's diet.

Meanwhile, the price of oil has jumped, raising the cost of producing
crops and feeding livestock and causing an increase in grocery bills
here and abroad, sparking riots and protests in at least two dozen
countries.

At a moment when corn should be almost waist-high here in Iowa, the
country's top-producing corn state, more than a million acres have been
washed out and destroyed.

Beyond that, agriculture experts estimate that 2 million acres of soy
beans have been lost to water, putting the state's total grain loss at
20 percent so far, with the threat of more rain to come.

"The American farmer, we feed the world," Timmerman said. "We're going
to be short on corn and we're going to be short on soybeans."

He continued, "It's heart-wrenching."

While Timmerman feels the weight of the situation on his own bottom
line — he had just saved enough to upgrade from a 6-row planter to a
16-row version and splurged on his first new tractor — he also feels the
weight of the world as he ponders his output under the wide skies of
Benton County, an idyllic landscape that could rival a movie set with
its picture-perfect backdrops of big red barns.

Jim Fawcett, a crop specialist at the Iowa State University's
agricultural extension service, has been hosting emergency meetings with
farmers around the state. With standing water comes concerns about
manure storage, pollution, livestock safety, soil erosion, mold and
fungus and other plant diseases.

"We know there's going to be less of a crop now than there could have
been months ago," he said. "There will be some fields where there's no
crop. If the flooding continues, we won't have any growing season to
work with. For corn, time has run out."

And the flooding has continued. The rain hardly stops for long. As
Timmerman prepared Saturday to leave his house in suburban Cedar Rapids
for his fields in Benton County, a thunderstorm pounded the ground with
hail. But before he reached the fields, gray skies gave way to blinding
sunshine. The light produced an odd effect on the drenched fields,
causing them to shimmer.

"What kills me is that it's beautiful, then it rains, it's beautiful,
then it rains," said Timmerman's wife, Rachelle. "Huge rain drops. Just
pouring."

The ground does not have time to dry before more rain adds to the
already saturated earth. And unseasonably cool temperatures have not
helped. In May, there were some 30-degree nights. Iowa's growing season
is notoriously productive because it is usually long and warm.

"Tessa kept asking, 'When is spring coming, Mommy?' " Mrs. Timmerman
said, referring to the youngest of her four children. "She's 4, and she
was learning about the seasons, so she wondered where spring was."

The temperatures have finally warmed, but, Timmerman said, "We've been
about a month behind in our weather all year."

If the corn sprouts do not mature enough before the deep heat of summer
hits, there will be more problems ahead.

The bad news keeps on coming. On Wednesday, a burst of high wind,
perhaps a tornado, ripped apart one of Timmerman's storage sheds,
depositing splintery wooden debris over some of his puny soybeans. The
bean sprouts should be mid-shin height by now but they barely reach to
the top of Timmerman's flip-flop.

"In years like this, you hope you can pay your bills," he said. "Our
family has roots in farming, and even when times are tough, you stay
with it."

They have certainly known the tough times. There were many years when
Timmerman did not make enough money to have to pay income taxes. He used
nothing but second-hand farm equipment — some of it decades old — and
rented his house. He worked a full-time job off the farm, and still
managed to produce bumper crops of hundreds of bushels of corn an acre.

"I knew that one day we'd see good times," he said. Those days began to
come just a few years ago. Corn prices inched up, then leaped, and
suddenly he had enough money to buy a five-bedroom house, new trucks and
a $90,000 combine. Their family grew with another baby, Tessa.

But he has had to leave the new 16-row planter next to the barn on what
should have been planting days. He is spending two or three times as
much on seed, fertilizer and diesel fuel — some $1,500 a month on that
alone. And the processing companies where he needs to send 17 truckloads
of last year's stored corn are under water in Cedar Rapids.

Timmerman has five plots of land adding up to 760 acres. He is glad that
he diversified his land, but even the land that has not been flooded has
soaked up too much rain and the stalks are not anything like what he
knows they could be.

An optimist at heart and a pragmatist with German roots, Timmerman grew
more dejected as he drove around Benton County from Van Horne to Vinton
to Keystone taking a close look at his fields for the first time since
the major flooding began.

"I'm a little more depressed than I was earlier because I'm seeing dark
spots that I know aren't going to produce," he said. "This is looking
worse than I thought. It really gets to you."

But there are bright moments even at times like this. Timmerman's only
son John, 7, recently brought home his first-grade journals.

"Yesterday, I rode the combine with my dad," the little boy wrote,
Timmerman said, bursting with pride. He has already outfitted John with
miniature versions of all the major farm equipment.

"Farmers are optimistic," Timmerman said. "We got to be, to go out and
plant and rely on mother nature."