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USDA Declares Half Of Midwest As Agricultural Disaster Area
MarketSkeptics.com ^ | 11/13/09 | Eric deCarbonnel

Posted on 11/16/2009 8:44:26 AM PST by Kartographer

The graphic below shows counties designated as disaster areas by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (data from the USDA. See http://www.fema.gov/dhsusda/searchState.do). It speaks for itself.

(Excerpt) Read more at marketskeptics.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Government
KEYWORDS: food
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1 posted on 11/16/2009 8:44:29 AM PST by Kartographer
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To: Kartographer

How come Washington DC isn’t listed? After all, DC is a man made disaster area of many magnitudes over natural events.


2 posted on 11/16/2009 8:49:43 AM PST by o_zarkman44
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To: Kartographer

That top left county in Colorado is Pitkin, home to Aspen and not a whole lot else. Why it’d be an Ag Disaster is beyond me. I assume it’s just a chance to reward Blue Counties.


3 posted on 11/16/2009 8:51:23 AM PST by NativeNewYorker (Freepin' Jew Boy)
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To: NativeNewYorker

“I assume it’s just a chance to reward Blue Counties.”

I don’t think so: Look at the whole state of Oklahoma - they have many red counties!


4 posted on 11/16/2009 8:57:18 AM PST by RebelTXRose
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To: RebelTXRose
Plus, an awful lot of Oklahoma is simply not considered to be "Midwest" ~ more like "Souf'". Then there's Texas ~ goes all the way to the "Southwest".

Keep your eyes North of the Ohio, and West of the Alleghenies out to the Dakotas ~ with Missouri kind of divied up all over the place ~ definitely half the territory.

Now, for the Souf', it's in even worse shape.

This is what happens when you have a dry winter and cool winds in Spring and Summer that bring in vast areas of heavy overcast and torrential rains.

The famines are on the way and the price of grain is going up!

5 posted on 11/16/2009 9:01:09 AM PST by muawiyah (Git Out The Way)
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To: Kartographer
My county is declaired a Ag Disaster Area! Maybe who ever is haveing a problem should change their crop selection!

I had a great Harvest over the summer!

Photobucket

6 posted on 11/16/2009 9:07:24 AM PST by Red_Devil 232 (VietVet - USMC All Ready On The Right? All Ready On The Left? All Ready On The Firing Line!)
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To: NativeNewYorker
I assume it’s just a chance to reward Blue Counties.


7 posted on 11/16/2009 9:08:58 AM PST by OB1kNOb (ISLAM IS THE H1N1 OF RELIGIONS.)
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To: OB1kNOb

Hey, what do New Yorkers know about Midwestern geography? :)


8 posted on 11/16/2009 9:11:40 AM PST by NativeNewYorker (Freepin' Jew Boy)
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To: NativeNewYorker
;-) Just funnin' ya.

BTW - We're on target to break the all time annual rain record in our state, if we get a little over 2 more inches of rain by year end. We're 25+ inches over average so far. Soybeans, cotton, and even rice are a disaster here this year. To wet to harvest or moldy. And we are the nation's rice capital. And it's raining here again today. Out toes are starting to develop webbing.

9 posted on 11/16/2009 9:40:45 AM PST by OB1kNOb (ISLAM IS THE H1N1 OF RELIGIONS.)
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To: OB1kNOb

Out = Our


10 posted on 11/16/2009 9:41:29 AM PST by OB1kNOb (ISLAM IS THE H1N1 OF RELIGIONS.)
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To: OB1kNOb

Almost a perfect match.


11 posted on 11/16/2009 9:55:38 AM PST by Califreak (Obama's Purple Reign must be stopped!)
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To: Kartographer

Every county save two here in MO is a disaster area? We had a middlin to good harvest so far. What the hell are they talking about?


12 posted on 11/16/2009 9:58:43 AM PST by cardinal4 (Dont Tread on Me)
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To: Kartographer

Pretty funny. Pike County, PA is the little yellow point that sticks out at the extreme eastern end of the graph.

Nothing much in the way of agriculture happens here. It is all rocks glacieated plateau. 32% of our roughly 400 square mile county is state forest, state gameland or National Park.

Only disaster I am aware of is a hay shortage and the tomato blight. I think there may be 5 farms left in the county.


13 posted on 11/16/2009 9:58:47 AM PST by finnsheep
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To: Red_Devil 232

Are those habaneros on the left? Nice crop.


14 posted on 11/16/2009 10:03:11 AM PST by bassfishing
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To: cardinal4
"What the hell are they talking about?"

Exactly what I'm wondering. We're in the NW corner of MO and it's a bountiful year.

15 posted on 11/16/2009 10:13:45 AM PST by buschbaby (No longer silent ~ No longer polite ~ Fights the idiots with truth)
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To: bassfishing
Yes those are Habaneros! I had two plants and did they produce! I had no idea how prodictive they would be - they were comming out my ears. Sent a bunch fresh to another FReeper and had the water-meter reader and his boss getting as many as they wanted. I oven roasted and froze a bunch!

Photobucket

16 posted on 11/16/2009 10:24:53 AM PST by Red_Devil 232 (VietVet - USMC All Ready On The Right? All Ready On The Left? All Ready On The Firing Line!)
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To: OB1kNOb

Delta Farm Press reports that Arkansas would be lucky to make ‘half the crop’.

Soybeans: ‘half the crop’
Nov 12, 2009 10:37 AM, By David Bennett, Farm Press Editorial Staff

On Nov. 4, Gus Wilson took a sample of soybeans with 100 percent damage.

“It was the first time I’ve seen that,” says the Chicot County, Ark., Extension staff chair. “The situation here is bad, bleak. We’ll be lucky to make half the crop we’ve made in the last three to four years. That’s strictly due to the weather.”

Chicot County in extreme southeast Arkansas has caught huge rains all fall. Now, watching crops deteriorate, Wilson says he’s not seen “a group of growers who’ve been more discouraged. Those who were planning to plant wheat may be out of luck. If there’s wheat planted and emerged in Chicot County, I don’t know where it’s at.”

As in the rest of the Mid-South, the county has had several good days of weather. But fields “are rutting up big-time. The cost to our farmers for field preparation next year is going to be high. Rice ground will definitely have be disked a couple of times and landplaned — we’ve got major ruts. The lower ends of fields are horrible.

“People are getting stuck, left and right. This heavy buckshot is just at the right doughy stage where it wants to stick and not shed.

“We have lost some crops already and there’s still water backed up. There will be parts of fields abandoned.”

Plunkett says area elevators are “looking closely at what they accept. Around here, I think they’ll go up to about 20 percent dockage. So far, the bad bean situations have been running in the 15 percent dockage range. Some may be a little higher than that.”

Back in Chicot County, Wilson says the early corn harvested “was okay. I’d estimate that, compared to the last two years, we were down to 35 to 45 bushels per acre [for corn]. That was because of the spring rains.”

Faced with a seemingly unceasing deluge in 2009, veteran farmers are struggling to come up with a similar year in the past.

“My father is 82 years old and he’s farmed 55 to 60 years,” says Wilson. “He says this is the worst harvest season he’s ever seen. Out of his career, he said only one year comes close — he can’t remember if it was in the late 1950s or early 1960s.

“It’s awful. I’m hearing, ‘I won’t be able to pay my bills.’ I hope that doesn’t mean there will be any bankruptcies. Hopefully, there will be a disaster payment, a direct payment from the feds.”


17 posted on 11/16/2009 10:41:05 AM PST by OB1kNOb (ISLAM IS THE H1N1 OF RELIGIONS.)
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To: Kartographer

Hmmmm, that map shows Cook County, IL as an Ag Disaster area. Cook County = Chicago. Not too many farms in Chicago.

More that is 0bama’s fault.


18 posted on 11/16/2009 10:44:14 AM PST by Petruchio (Democrats are like Slinkies... Not good for anything, but it's fun pushing 'em down the stairs.)
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To: OB1kNOb
.."Hopefully, there will be a disaster payment, a direct payment from the feds."

Had to get to the end of the article find the truth..

19 posted on 11/16/2009 10:44:44 AM PST by cardinal4 (Dont Tread on Me)
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To: cardinal4

Hmm... Maybe the ACORN crop has suffered? ;-)


20 posted on 11/16/2009 11:00:17 AM PST by Kartographer (".. we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.")
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