Credit Map by Abbie Fentress Swanson (Harvest Public Media). Data submitted by farmers and livestock producers through the Public Insight Network.
The nation’s worst drought in decades moved Harvest Public Media to look at how the drought is affecting livestock producers just starting out in the business.
Parts of the Midwest got a reprieve from the drought this week, according to the latest US Drought Monitor report released on Thursday. The report found that last weekend’s cold front brought up to five inches of rain to southeastern Missouri, eastern Illinois and central Indiana.
Credit Abbie Fentress Swanson/Harvest Public Media
Alfred Brandt says he will have to pay $100,000 in out-of-pocket feed costs to get his 150 Holstein cows fed through next spring.
Credit Abbie Fentress Swanson/Harvest Public Media
This pasture usually has fescue grass that's up to 10 inches high. But there have been just two inches of rain here in the past two months.
Credit Abbie Fentress Swanson/Harvest Public Media
Brandt will have to cull his herd this winter, and sell cows that are not making a profit. That’s sad since some of them have a lifetime of breeding ahead of them.
Credit . Abbie Fentress Swanson/Harvest Public Media
Normally the corn Brandt chops fills his two upright silos. This year, the drought hit his crop so hard that he's not able to fill them, even with corn purchased from a neighbor.
Credit Abbie Fentress Swanson/Harvest Public Media
Dan and Laura Pugh wanted to graze their five new sheep on pasture. But the fields were too dry and instead they've had to buy alfalfa -- pellets and some of the fresh stuff -- to keep the sheep healthy. Soon they’ll have to buy some hay.
Credit Abbie Fentress Swanson/Harvest Public Media
The Pughs also buy feed for their 30 chickens.
Credit Abbie Fentress Swanson/Harvest Public Media
The Pughs were hoping their three Berkshire pigs would be able to help them plough up some of the ground to extend the boundaries of their garden. But it’s been so dry the pigs haven’t been able to burrow much.
Credit . Abbie Fentress Swanson/Harvest Public Media
The creek that runs through the Pughs’ 50-acre farm is completely dried up.
Credit Abbie Fentress Swanson/Harvest Public Media
They bet they'll make $10,000 for the tomatoes, watermelons, potatoes, onions, beans, peppers, lettuce, spinach, eggplant, beets, carrots, peas, radishes, turnips, squash and zucchini are among the vegetables they've sold at the farmers’ market this year.
Brandt Dairy sits on Swan Creek at the end of a meandering gravel road in Linn, Missouri. The farm is bucolic with its twin silos, red barn and black-and-white Holstein cows. But the brown pastures, dry river bed and burnt corn fields are a reminder that there have been less than two inches of rain here in the last two months.
Farmers growing crops have insurance to ward off the financial failure of their season during this terrible drought. But there’s no safety net like that in place for livestock producers. And any emergency aid is tied up in Washington politics.
The rock and the hard place where Stacey McCallister now sits looks like this:
Rock: McCallister’s herd of 200 dairy cattle in south central Missouri have feed for about the next 60 days.
