Posted on 06/14/2014 5:53:01 AM PDT by bestintxas
According to a new article at the Guardian, corn-mageddon could be just around the corner in the United States because of anthropogenic climate change:
"The days of 'king corn' could be numbered as climate change brings higher temperatures and water shortages to America's farmland, a new report warned on Wednesday...
The report amplifies warnings earlier this year from United Nations climate scientists and the National Climate Assessment that America's agricultural industry -- and specifically its corn crop -- was at risk from the high temperatures and water shortages anticipated under climate change...
Corn uses the most water for irrigation of any crop, and accounts for half of all fertiliser use. Some of that corn is raised in areas experiencing water shortages because of over-use and recurring droughts, such as California's Central Valley or the high plains states of Kansas and Nebraska...
Recent studies have found corn at high risk from the higher temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, and water shortages caused by climate change. Corn plants are especially sensitive to heatwaves and drought. A report in Science last month found that growers were having more trouble than initially expected in adapting to hotter and drier conditions.
The scientists said growers in the mid-west could lose as much as 15% of their yield within the next 50 years."
There is a lot of alarmism here that needs to be countered.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
I do understand what you mean, however Kruschev made more headway in his time training Communist Teachers to speak English and Americanize them, so they could come to USA and teach our Children to be good comrades.
IMHO let them have the gas end of the corn market. WE need to use our land for feed not ethanol. The only thing I don’t understand is that if Russia was not conducive to raising corn back then, why would it be now? Canada yes...
I live in California's Central Valley. Water shortages to farmlands are the result of horrible water management policies from liberal politicians who want to appease environmental political pressure groups who have no realistic grasp on environmental issues nor even the tiniest hint of mercy for the lives of the farmers they are ruining. We let most of the water we could irrigate the fields with just flow out to the sea unused by anybody.
Western Ukraine is the area of rapidly expanding corn production. Most of Russia is a little too cold.
Yes. But at mid level blends the ethanol mileage penalty disappears. The engine manufacturers are very interested in higher ethanol blends as one possible way to meet next generation mileage and emissions standards.
Maybe that’s the draw for Russia to go after the Ukraine, I understood the sea port, Crimea, so now the rest of the Ukraine will support corn production?
Sure. Probably not specifically corn, but fabulously productive farmland.
If global warming was real, corn production could move north into Russia.
That’s why the latest term is ‘climate disruption’. That way, whatever happens, it’s bad and humans caused it.
No it doesn't. Mileage is dependent on the amount of energy available per gallon as measured by BTU's per gallon. The higher the gas/ethanol ratio, the lower the BTU's. There is nothing magical about ethanol. It's just a filler.
“I think you are arguing that prices would be lower with out government involvement, and that’s true.
The problem for farmers, and consumers is that current prices are below cost of production.
Short term lower prices are certainly a possibility, but not sustained lower prices.”
certainly corn would be at a lower price if no govt interference.
the point is that corn would no longer be grown as it already displaced a more lucrative other type of grain.
markets will find their place, and corn’s is distorted
OOOHHHH! Okay.
There has been a scientific explanation, not related to climate change, on why weather has changed further North at glaciers. I read some thing about it, but I am not into that much. I know I saw a meteorologist on TV, who was discussing the cycles of weather from hot to cold that are every 40-50 years.... and may look like climate change but aren’t?
Have the writers ever been to the Central Valley of California?
Corn is not exactly one of the big crops there, heck it only ranks as 33 on the California value scale - Page 8 here -
http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/statistics/PDFs/2013/CountyStatisticalData.pdf
A good idea as well, but often surface waters are already spoken for, and out west that can be very contentious.
In concept it is as simple as you stated. in practice it’s almost impossibly more complicated.
Since the 1950s the US Government has had a cheap Food for Consumers Program. There are various and almost countless subprograms, the Farm Program being the catch all phrase.
It’s goal is to provide cheap food, and as such it has been extremely successful until the environmentalist’s got involved.
One important aspect of the program was to keep farmers poor, so that they would be held captive by the government, forced to grow food at barely subsidence prices.
For a farmer, the choice was clear; Either sign up, grow what you were told too, don’t grow what you were prohibited from growing, and leave certain fields unworked when instructed. OR; go do something else with your life. There was really no in between.
Most farmers, including my family, eventually capitulated.
Then came the fuel mandates of the 90s. Suddenly farmers could make a profit similar to what their counterpart businessmen in the city were making. That included the ability to tell the government to stuff their cheap food business.
Slowly the government has regains it’s stranglehold, and farmers are once again facing serious long term minimal margins, and the heavy hand of the local bureaucrat.
You say they should grow a more lucrative crop. Sounds good. You can provide specific information to the farmer, and become a millionaire a hundred times over.
I’d like to join you if invited. I have lots of people who are looking to farm more profitably. I’m meeting with 30 or 40 next week, don’t delay.
>> The scientists said growers in the mid-west could lose as much as 15% of their yield within the next 50 years.”
Science is political.
In 2013 we had no rain after the end of June until harvest here in Illinois. The rest of the corn belt had slightly better conditions. Due to the drought resistance characteristics in modern day GMO corn, the 2013 season produced a record national yield. Dry land farmers in Nebraska are no longer raising grain sorghum as a result of these drought resistance genetics.
The past high price of corn was a direct result of the 2012 drought. The crops look fine this year & if we ever have a normal year we will have so much corn, we won’t know what to do with it. With the exception of 2012 on, with few exceptions, the nation’s “agricultural problem” has been one of overproduction.
Water rights in the West are historically quite contentious, to put it mildly, but I doubt loss of the Platte River water that contributes to the Missouri would bother many people.
Might even try pumping some of the Missouri river water at that point into the aquifer.
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