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from the too-much-of-a-good-thing-is-not-so-good dept.
At least 1 million acres (405,000 hectares) of U.S. farmland were flooded after the "bomb cyclone" storm left wide swaths of nine major grain producing states under water this month, satellite data analyzed by Gro Intelligence for Reuters showed.
Farms from the Dakotas to Missouri and beyond have been under water for a week or more, possibly impeding planting and damaging soil. The floods, which came just weeks before planting season starts in the Midwest, will likely reduce corn, wheat and soy production this year.
"There's thousands of acres that won't be able to be planted," Ryan Sonderup, 36, of Fullerton, Nebraska, who has been farming for 18 years, said in a recent interview.
"If we had straight sunshine now until May and June, maybe it can be done, but I don't see how that soil gets back with expected rainfall."
Spring floods could yet impact an even bigger area of cropland. The U.S. government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has warned of what could be an "unprecedented flood season" as it forecasts heavy spring rains. Rivers may swell further as a deep snow pack in northern growing areas melts.
[...] The flooded acreage represents less than 1 percent of U.S. land used to grow corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, cotton, sorghum and barley. In 2018, some 240 million total acres of these crops were planted in the United States, USDA data shows.
[...] In Wisconsin more than 1,000 dairy and beef animals were lost during winter storms and 480 agricultural structures collapsed or damaged, according to an email from Sandy Chalmers, executive director of the Wisconsin state office of the USDA's Farm Service Agency.
US Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue tells Fox News Business:
"There may be as many as a million calves lost in Nebraska"
https://agroinsurance.com/en/usa-nebraska-ag-losses-from-flooding-estimated-close-to-1b/:
The Nebraska Farm Bureau president says farm and ranch losses to the devastating flooding could reach $1 billion in the state.
President Steve Nelson estimates $400 million on crop losses because of crops that will be planted late — if at all. He also estimates up to $500 million in livestock losses as the state struggles with swollen rivers and breached or overtopped levees following heavy rain and snowmelt.
Apparently this is a loss of about 1% the total cattle in the US:
All Cattle and Calves
- 94.4 million - 1% increase from 2017 (93.7 million)
(Score: 3, Touché) by Joe Desertrat on Saturday March 30 2019, @11:49PM (8 children)
Except for there being fewer and fewer tourists with the means to visit.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday March 31 2019, @03:38AM (2 children)
You been to Yellowstone during tourist season? It's gotten downright crowded. Way more than when I was a kid -- then you might have minor attractions all to yourself. Not anymore...
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday March 31 2019, @10:18AM (1 child)
That's his point -- it's so expensive and crowded that nobody goes there anymore.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday March 31 2019, @02:18PM
Yogi? is that you??
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 31 2019, @03:51AM (4 children)
Except of course, climate change has been happening for a while and people just haven't gotten poorer. Instead, we see huge increases [nationalparked.com] in visitation. For example, in 1960, visitation (1.4 million) was a third what it was in 2016 (4.3 million). The narrative isn't coming close to explaining reality.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday April 02 2019, @09:45PM (3 children)
Nice try. When things get to the point to where people have to start "moving uphill", that will mean there are vast disruptions to the current state of things. There will likely be a great deal of social and economic turmoil, and luxury activities such as tourism will be the first to feel the effects.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 03 2019, @02:55AM (2 children)
Nice victory you should mean. Assertion was made, which has been dramatically false historically.
I disagree that the disruption is vast. Keep in mind the slow time scales. So you have to move your house in a century or two? How many houses will be built on that spot before anyone has to move? I'd say at least two. People don't get how minimally we and our societies are affected by slow changes. That's why I assert that contrary to the concern expressed above, we'll probably never notice the effects of climate change even over a few decades except for some modest geographical effects.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Monday April 08 2019, @09:13PM (1 child)
You mean the disruption has not been vast yet. You are apparently assuming that things will continue to change at the same slow linear rate as applied from the early 1960's to now, instead of the increasing rate of change which has been occurring, especially since the turn of the century.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 09 2019, @02:01AM
Which isn't much different from said linear rate. How many centuries will we need to wait?