Extreme weather can hit farmers hard. Those with smaller farming operations often pay the price

Keith Lowery, another farmer near Mayfield, woke up one morning this summer to eight inches of rain, and by dinnertime, when the deluge finally stopped, he knew he had a problem.

Lowry found fields of half-submerged corn and soybeans almost completely hidden under the floods, rapids cascading down their streams like a waterfall. Now, at harvest time, it is estimated that they have lost between 5 and 10 percent of their crop this year. On top of that, they had to deal with debris that washed into their fields, a nuisance that got in the way of heavy machinery.

Lowry has a relatively large operation — 3,000 acres, mostly corn and soybeans, plus another 2,000 acres from his son’s farms. Although he has suffered some losses, he says he and other farmers are used to dealing with uncooperative weather. “That’s the nature of the beast,” he said.

But without a grain elevator or on-farm storage and with limited transportation options, Lowery explained that his neighbors would have had to get soybeans into their fields. For that reason, a cloudy day last November found him helping out on a much smaller plot of land, bringing in a crop of about 250 acres.

While farmers and townspeople depend on each other to be resilient, the ripple effect of these natural disasters has had lasting effects on a community where agriculture is the heart of commerce.

“Because we have a large county that is densely populated with grain farmers, the loss of (the grain elevator) forced them to move to surrounding counties, often 40 or 50 miles away, to move their grain,” said Miranda Rudolph, grain management director. University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Agent for Graves County. She said fuel prices have risen, adding to the pressure.

Larger farms tend to have a wider range of options to offset their risks, including crop insurance, which often costs less per acre when applied to larger areas, said Hans Schmitz, an agricultural expert with Bordeaux Extension Agency.

For example, Jed Clark, who grows about 3,000 acres of grain near Mayfield, said he relies on crop insurance and also tries to spread his crop rotations strategically, betting that crops in lowland areas will do well in a dry year. Crops on higher ground will outlast those washed away by floods.

On small farms, if farmers have to put everything in a low-lying, flooded area, the entire crop could be affected, Schmitz said. So farmers with less land sometimes look to specialty crops like watermelon or tomatoes to try to increase profits with the space they have, but these crops are not easily insured.

Schmitz said he believes climate change is contributing to the consolidation of farmland, meaning an increase in the size of large farms. It is relatively easy to start a very small farm, but difficult to stay afloat. He said: “What matters to me is the cavity in the middle.”

The small farm’s viability also has to do with infrastructure, said Adam Coe, another Kentucky farmer who owns a family-run farm with 1,200 acres of corn, soybeans and wheat (plus two hog barns and 100 sheep) between Mayfield. And Murray. It is believed that the farmers who were most affected after the hurricane were those who did not have a grain store on their land.

Coe said he has noticed changes in the weather over the years, but he believes the corporate mentality has more to do with why large farms always get bigger. “The people have changed more than the weather,” he added. “Morality has changed in the last 20 years… I call it serial killer.”

However, the effects of weather cannot be denied. Schmitz, who also farms about 1,200 acres of corn, soybeans and wheat in Indiana, says he has seen increased summer moisture promote diseases of wheat, barley and oats in the Midwest. He has seen that higher nighttime temperatures lead to more heat stress on most crops. He said that while some farmers resort to irrigation to cope with sudden and severe droughts, he has seen the same irrigation pivots end up in stagnant water after sudden and severe floods.

“It goes back to the Midwestern adage, ‘If you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes.’ “We’ve certainly always had the ability to make very large changes in the weather over a short period of time,” he said. “But seeing climate change lead “The potential for these extreme events to worsen in both directions over a short period of time is worrying.”

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Associated Press journalist Joshua Bickle contributed to this report.

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