“Climate Change Plays Role in Kentucky Farmers’ Daily Struggles”
Mayfield, KY. (AP) — As Justin Ralph makes his daily 200 trips delivering grain from the fields he farms with his brother and uncle this year. They’re used to using their four semi-trucks to take the harvest from a total of about 800 acres each of corn, soybeans, and wheat to market. Justin expressed that they’ve been having to travel longer distances because of bad weather due to climate change.
The 2021 tornado outbreak that destroyed a massive grain elevator in Mayfield, Kentucky has forced Ralph to travel longer distances due to the lack of options in the local area. Farmers and experts say that larger farms are more capable of managing risks compared to smaller to midsize farmers who struggle when extreme weather hits and cause crop loss. The compounding effect of these natural disasters has had impacts on the community where agriculture is at the heart of commerce.
Keith Lowry, another farmer near Mayfield, woke up one morning this summer to a rainfall that destroyed his crops, forcing him to deal with lost crops and debris that washed into his fields
Farmers with less land therefore sometimes look toward specialty crops like watermelon or tomato to try to increase profits with the acreage they have.
The capability of a smaller farm to survive also has to do with infrastructure, said Adam Kough, another Kentucky farmer who has a mostly family-run 1200 acres of corn, soybeans and wheat. He thinks the farmers who were hurt the most after the tornado were those who didn’t have grain storage on their land.
Schmitz, who also farms about 1200 acres of corn, soybeans and wheat in Indiana, says that he’s seen increasing summertime humidity foster diseases of wheat, barley and oats in the Midwest. He’s seen higher nighttime temperatures induce more heat stress on most crops. And he said that while some farmers turn to irrigation to get them through sudden and intense droughts — he’s seen those same irrigation pivots end up in standing water after intense and sudden floods. The weather impacts are undeniable.
Small-Scale Farmers Vulnerable to the Impact of Extreme Weather Events
