Perilous
Times and Climate Change
Texas farmers, ranchers see losses growing as severe drought
continues
By Associated Press, Updated: Wednesday, May 25, 2:29 AM
LUBBOCK, Texas — A historic drought has already cost Texas farmers
and ranchers an estimated $1.5 billion, and the cost is growing
daily as parched conditions persist in much of the state.
May is typically the wettest month in Texas, but parts of the
state haven’t seen significant rain since last August. Officials
said if the drought continues into June, losses for the nation’s
second largest agriculture producer will top $4 billion, making it
the costliest season on record.
( Betsy Blaney / Associated Press ) - In this May 19, 2011 photo,
Tyler Gray stirs up a cloud of dust as pulls a tiller across a dry
cotton field near Lubbock, Texas, trying to break up hardened
ground. A historic drought has already cost Texas farmers and
ranchers an estimated $1.5 billion, and the cost is growing daily
as parched conditions persist in much of the state.
“We’re well on our way to breaking the record of the past,” said
Carl Anderson, an agricultural economist with Texas AgriLife
Extension Service, referring to the 2006 season.
Anderson is 79 and has seen many droughts, but he said this year
looks as bad as anything since the record dry years of the 1950s.
“This (drought) will match anything I saw in the ‘50s,” he said.
The Lubbock area between Nov. 1 and Tuesday got just 1.17 inches
of rain — about 17 percent of the normal 6.70 inches for that
span.
Meteorologists blame the conditions on La Nina, a cooling of the
Pacific waters near the equator. It’s caused extreme drought in
Texas and parts of Oklahoma, Louisiana and New Mexico even as much
of the eastern half of the nation endured wet, cold weather.
The drought has dried up cattle ponds and grass crunches underfoot
in many fields.
Texas livestock producers have seen the biggest losses — about
$1.2 billion of the $1.5 billion total, which includes increased
feeding costs to pay for hay, lost value of wheat pasture grazing
and the high costs associated with hauling water daily to meet
animals’ needs, Anderson said.
About 90 percent of Texas’ beef cows are located in counties in
severe to exceptional drought.
For some farmers, the season is already lost, but there’s still
time for those in some regions. In the South Plains region of West
Texas around Lubbock, for example, cotton can be planted as late
as June.
Still, Anderson estimates South Plains producers will produce 2
million bales less of dryland cotton — grown in fields that aren’t
irrigated — than usual, resulting in a $1.2 billion loss.
Texas typically plants about half the U.S.’s cotton acreage, so a
large-scale failure could cause a price spike, though that would
depend on crops elsewhere in the U.S. and in other countries as
well as demand.
West Texas cotton producer Rickey Bearden usually plants dryland
cotton on about two-thirds of his 9,000 acres. Without rain, he
said most of that will be lost.
“It doesn’t look bright right at the moment but I haven’t given up
yet,” Bearden said. “We’ll have to have some help from Mother
Nature.”
State climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon said farmers are running
out of time. If rains don’t arrive soon, “it’ll be too hot for the
crops to recover,” he said.
The drought also comes when farmers already were faced with
increased costs for fertilizer and diesel.
Some ranchers, faced with no hay crop, have opted to reduce the
size of their herds rather than pay up to $2 a day per head to
truck in feed.
East Texas cattle producer Phil Sadler, who’s ranched for about 35
years, said he could go out of business if it remains dry.
“At least we’ll have to scale down and do things a little
differently,” the 64-year-old said. “If it doesn’t rain it
wouldn’t be life as usual. Things will have to change.”
Texas has a long history with droughts, and since 1998, they have
cost Texas agriculture $13.1 billion.
Anderson said the rest of the spring will determine how this year
ranks in the history of Texas droughts.
“It’s early,” Anderson said. “The question is do we get rain in
the next four weeks to salvage some of the plantings.”