Posted on 11/26/2018 10:32:13 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
At Jim Benham's soybean farm in Versailles, Ill., he says 20 acres of crops have been ruined this year by excessive rain – a casualty of climate change.
"It's like chewing gum; they're just too wet," he said of the soybeans too soggy to harvest; they'd turn to paste if he tried.
And what's worse, the 67-year-old farmer says he doesn't need a Ph.D. to know that things have changed. "When we have a rain event, we're not getting an inch; we're getting two and three and four inches," Benham said. "It doesn't take a scientist to know you have a problem. It's what I'm experiencing."
And scientists agree. A new government report says man-made climate change is already wreaking havoc on the U.S., and it will only get worse in the coming decades.
In the Fourth National Climate Assessment, issued Friday, 13 federal agencies warn climate change "... will reduce Midwest agricultural productivity to levels of the 1980s."
Andrew Light, one of the report's editors, says the evidence humans are causing climate change is undeniable.
"The part of the country that's going to get worse fastest is actually the Midwest, which is the breadbasket of America," he said.
"Towards the end of the century, you could see the United States economy losing hundreds of billions of dollars every single year, and tens of thousands of Americans dying every single year because of climate change," said Light.
"This is all avoidable at this point."
Yet last year, President Trump, who has called man-made climate change a "hoax," announced he was pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord, saying it would be unfair to American businesses.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
I never knew anybody that grew rice, so I really can’t say.
As far as I know it is a grass and doesn’t require any special equipment to plant or harvest, so I would guess that you could plant it in place of wheat.
The real problem with growing rice is that you need a place to sell it. In my area I don’t know of any grain elevator that buys it. So, a farmer that decides to grow it may have to truck it a long way to sell it.
So in your own scientific opinion, people who don’t believe in Global Warming don’t know what they’re talking about because your bean patch was a little damp this year?
Where do you live. Let’s talk about your climatological expertise.
In the mean time, digest this. It may not be your neighborhood, but still. You’re not winning any wars with bullshit anecdotal evidence, Farmer Bean.
https://www.isws.illinois.edu/statecli/climate-change/NE-IL-trends/rainfall.htm
Mind you, this doesn’t even go back two hundred years, they pick a BS point to start with when we were coming out of a mini-ice age.
“When you google Jim Benham, articles quote him as being Head of the Indiana Farmers Union..........”
Were you Paul Harvey in another life with “the rest of the story”? Good catch - and the MSM wonders how they get the moniker of “fake news”...let’s mark this Exhibit XXX.
I’m insured,I just hate to lose something of value.
Ruined soybeans is GOOd news.
Just curious,what crops do you grow? And isn't the fall the time of year when such crops are harvested? So how did the rain affect your crops?
Twenty acres is a postage stamp in the realm of crop farming. NASS (National Agricultural Statistics Service) is projecting a 64 bushel average yield for Illinois in 2018. The 64 bushel yield in 2018 will be the highest state yield in Illinois, surpassing the last record yield of 59 bushels per acre set in 2016.
never heard of anyone with 20 acres of soybean called a soybean farmer.
Can’t tell from the article if the 20 acres is his whole crop or part of it.
The farmer who farms our fields has 800 acres of beans he can’t combine right now cause it’s wet. But that’s only part of his crop.
2 words. Crop Insurance.
2 more words. Stop whining.
20 acres @ 45 bushels per acre = 900 bushels.
beans are about $8.50 per bushel.
$7500 loss. Big deal. Not.
I guess between wildlife, bugs, fungi,
and weather, it just doesn’t pay to
farm....
I’ve seen the destruction that feral
hogs can to to 20 acres of crops. In
one night. And the hogs don’t seem to
care about weather conditions. I’ve
millions of blackbirds wipe out 20
acres of sunflowers.
I would normally combine my soybeans at the end of September but it rained every 2-3 days.I grow wheat,oats,corn,and soybeans.I’m considering growing some barley-a couple of local small breweries have expressed an interest.
“When we have a rain event, we’re not getting an inch; we’re getting two and three and four inches,...”
In some circles, it’s called “atmospheric compression”, and can be attributed in part to increased cosmic rays due to the sun’s low magnetic activity.
It’s happening all over the world.
A simple map search will show that Versailles, Ill is a low-land swampy area between some lakes and a wide, flat stretch of the Illinois River.
I’m gonna take a wild guess and say he’s probably a democrat
OMG....farmers have never lost a crop before to unfavorable weather....20 acres of soybeans???.....is it even feasible to plant such a small amount? This story is pure BS.....
The end is near, we're all going to die. Unless, that is, we empower government to control more of the economy and our lives. It's a standard trick of the left - predict doom and gloom in the future in an attempt to scare the Hell out of people while promising to avoid it if we let them get their way. While this could apply to nearly anything Democrats are pushing on any given day, this week it's about global cooling. I mean, global warming. Er, scratch that, climate change...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.