The drought this summer is creating a less than average year for many farmers, especially on the western side of the country. The University of Idaho’s Garth Taylor said that what’s made this drought unique and more of a concern is the fact that what happens today could impact farmers for quite a few years.
“But what’s been happening with this heat, is that we’re now dipping into next year’s water. We’re dipping into the pool that we should be saving. And that’s what happens with multiyear droughts, and if this goes into next year, it can affect you for many years into the future if we continue on this path,” Taylor said.
He explained that dryland farmers have clearly been hit hard by the lack of moisture in the fields, but so have the irrigated farmers. Taylor went on to say that in order to get things turned around for the next growing season, the western United States has to see a significant amount of rainfall over the next couple of months, if not sooner. But, he also mentioned that even though droughts get a bad wrap, they aren’t always a negative for farming communities.
“What you’ll see with a lot of these, and it may be at the end of the year but, potato farmers, sugar beet or other farmers, earn more money as income because the prices went up a lot more than the quantity of production went down,” he explained. Even with that reasoning, we hope farmers in the West get the precipitation they need to pull through so they aren’t hit with hard times lingering into the next couple of years.
