Constant rain slows down Missouri crop production

The USDA released its weekly Crop Progress and Condition report Monday, and the numbers were below average.

While soybean planting increased this week, rain and flooding continued to limit fieldwork across the state.

Bill Wiebold at MU’s Bradford Research Center said he feels like he’s trapped in a never ending cycle.

“It’s like the movie groundhog day, where every day you wake up and you kinda repeat the same kind of wet weather,” he said.

The growing season in Missouri ends in August, but farmers are still having trouble harvesting and planting their crops.

“Either we couldn’t plant the crops, if we did plant them they’re not growing very well, and if they are growing they’ve got disease problems,” Wiebold said. “So that’s kind of a triple whammy that our farmers have faced.”

While farmers are used to the rain affecting the growing season, this year they have a unique headache to deal with.

“In many years you’ve got one crop that’s a problem, a challenge, has problems but other crops aren’t affected as much,” he said. “This year our three main grain crops in the state would be corn, soybeans, and wheat. All of them have had problems this year.”

Wiebold said when the Midwest saw a drought in 2012, the yield was low because most states couldn’t produce enough crop.

This caused prices to skyrocket and farmers benefited from the price increase.

While Wiebold said other states are having trouble with the rain, he thinks none of them can compare to Missouri’s precipitation problem.

“So our farmers are going to experience low yield but but the prices aren’t going to go up to compensate for that,” he said. “This is a really really big problem for Missouri farmers.”

As a result, Missouri farmers will see their incomes decrease since they’ll be selling less crops at the same price as other farmers in states with more yield.

Wiebold said the Missouri economy will also take a hit, since it depends so much on its agriculture.

“If that money’s not there it affects not only the farmers, but it affects the people in that community,” he said. “Those ripples go out even to an urban area that may not know that they’re dependent on farmers: they’ll find out that they are.”

While many farmers are able to use their insurance to cash in on yields they may have lost, Wiebold said it can’t compare to being able to sell their own crops.