U.S. Drought Leaves Cattle Ranchers with Not Many Choices
By Amanda Brodhagen, Farms.com
A desperate time requires desperate measures and that’s exactly what U.S. cattle ranchers are being faced with –smouldering drought with no life in sight and hungry cattle to feed. Pasture fields are non-existent and feed is hard to come by and often too expensive leaving farmers with a choice – what should I do next? With not many options available livestock producers have to liquidate their herds.
“You tough it out,” said Korte, whose farm near Curryville is about 70 miles northwest of St. Louis. “People will be deciding how much they need to sell based on whether it rains or not or if they can make it through the winter.”
The drought spells bad news for all farmers, but cattle-producers may be the hardest hit and to make matters worse the U.S. Congress couldn’t be bothered to pass legislation to make insurance available to cash crop farmers before they went on break meaning that cattle producers are left by the way-side responding to skyrocketing feed costs leaving them with little choice but to send their cattle to slaughter too early and in a lot of cases completely liquidating their herds. President Obama did make an announcement on Aug. 7 noting that the government would provide $30 million to farmers impacted by the drought. Although, this is a step in the right direction on part of the government – it’s simply not enough. Congress left for break before trying to make a go of the proposed changes to some of the farm programs that would have given farmers the real boost that they needed to get by.
For those ranchers who are still holding on, lack of forages isn’t their only problem – heat puts cattle under stress making it hard for them to gain weight requiring the producer to pump in more nutrition and added mineral supplements.
It’s a sad story, with no one to blame. After all, farmers are at the woe of Mother Nature only she can bring the rain needed to provide some relief to agricultural lands. It’s time to be thankful for what we do have and be ever more aware of not wasting food.