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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, AUGUST 19, 1983
PAGE 12
A drought [is] extending all across the nation's Midwest grain
lands, confounding farmers who had spent the spring battling
torrential rains--and alarming Washington planners with the pros
pect that Mother Nature and their own farm policy have combined
to guarantee a shrinking harvest and rising food prices during
the 1984 election year.
The parched farm belt extends from thirsty Eastern fields to arid
acres in west Texas--a pattern that has some state officials re
calling the Dust Bowl [of the 1930s]. The national crop forecast
is just as bleak. Last week the Agriculture Department predicted
a 38 percent plunge in the corn harvest--the smallest in nine
years. Farmers planting soybeans and other feed grains can ex
pect their own bad seasons.
The Drought of '83 finds the
nation's grain reserves adequate to cushion against any serious
shortages or near-term price hikes, but next year is more prob
lematical....
In a sense, [President] Reagan's agriculture policy has com
pounded the impact of the drought with a payment-in-kind (PIK)
prcgram that encouraged farmers to keep part of their land
fallow� in return, the government allocated them a share of the
national surplus in corn, wheat, rice or cotton to sell at market
value. The novel strategy was designed to cut back burgeoning
grain reserves while giving farm income a needed boost. As it
has worked out, PIK has reduced the potential corn crop by 2.2
billion bushels in addition to the estimated 1 billion bushels
devastated by drought. The combination of man-made and natural
shortfalls now threatens to shrink corn reserves--and leaves
administration officials perplexed about the wisdom of PIK. "No
matter how important we think we are in Washington," said Deputy
Agriculture Secretary�ichard Lyng'";-''somebody
!!£
There has more
clout than we do."
The drought struck hard and without warning. The unusually heavy
rafns of last spring le�farm-belt soil more moist than any on
record.
Then, in early July, the rains suddenly stopped-
replaced�� series of heat waves� sent temperatures soaring
pas
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100 degrees along the corn-rich southern rim of Iowa,
Ill1no�and Indiana. The combination of heat and drought proved
especially deadly to sensitive corn plants, which require in
creased moisture as a cooling mechanism in high temperatures.
Only about two-thirds of the crop has reached the silking--or
pollination--stage.
Plants that do not will never produce
kernels.
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In the last week to 10 days," says Norton Strommen,
the Agriculture Department's chief meteorologist, "the losses
have become irreversible."
In Marion County, Kans., farmers already are planning to make
silage of corn plants that have never even developed ears. In
southeastern Iowa, farmers expect to harvest five to 10 bushels
of corn on land that usually yields a hundred.... Conditions are
as bad in Jasper County, Ind. "There are fields out there that
are 90 to 95 percent gone," says farmer Alex Hanewich. "It's all
burned up from top to bottom. The leaves look like you could walk
out there and grab them and they'd crumble to dust."