Word: droughts
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That does not make it any less dangerous or severe. "The drought is one of the worst on record," says U.S. Department of Agriculture meteorologist Ray Motha. Comparisons to the dry disasters of the 1930s strike most observers as inadequate. "We've looked at the stats back to 100 years ago," says Erik Ness, director of communications at the New Mexico Farm and Livestock Bureau, "and there was more rain during the Dust Bowl than they are getting in Roosevelt County [on the state's eastern plains...
...should be 8 ft. high by now," says Mark Miller, an agricultural economist at Texas A&M University, "but even in the best fields, it is only 4 ft. high." And that scrawny crop could be imperiled. According to Joe Pena, also of Texas A&M, corn grown in drought-stressed conditions can develop aflatoxin, a condition that makes the ears essentially poisonous. Some of the reduced crop may have to be destroyed because it is toxic...
...first and most poignant casualties of the 1996 drought have been the cattle, grazing on blighted fields of stubble. Feed prices have, in some instances, tripled, while prices for cattle have been plummeting. Trying to stave off the inevitable, ranchers south of San Antonio have been hiring day laborers to "burn pear," Texas lingo for applying a butane torch to the cactus and searing off the spines so that cattle can munch on what remains. But many ranchers across the affected regions have given up, offering at auction the creatures they can no longer afford to feed...
...Dust Bowl of the 1930s prompted Congress to enact protections for afflicted farmers. Ironically, some safeguards began being phased out this year, as the 1996 drought was building. The new Freedom to Farm Act represents an attempt to wean farmers from price supports and occasional expensive supplemental federal disaster-relief bills with a system of fixed cash subsidies and low-cost, $50-per-crop insurance. Given these benefits, the reasoning went, farmers would be able to tide themselves over rough times without requiring ad hoc handouts. Almost no one thought this theory would be subjected to such a stern test...
...supporters of the new law say it is working just fine. Gary Mitchell, chief of staff of the House Agriculture Committee, notes that most wheat acreage in the drought-affected areas is insured--specifically, 91% in Colorado, 86% in Kansas, 85% in Oklahoma and 79% in Texas. Fears of widespread farm defaults and bankruptcies have not yet materialized. Larry Cervenka, a banker in Taylor, believes "96% to 97%" of local farmers will stay afloat, at least in the immediate future, because they raise both crops and cattle. But the fears and anxieties run high. "I wish," Cervenka adds, "Americans could...