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 ...
89.14 MILLION acres of soybeans planted in the US for 2018 and this guy’s 20 acres got too wet.
Garbage journalism for dumborats.
I’ve successfully harvested every crop before this year.
Never had a year as wet in the fall as this one.
The moron likely had crop insurance which mitigated his losses nicely.
We live in rural Indiana. Soybeans have all been harvested.
Farmer Doofus likely let his crop sit...so he could run and cry to See B S. Fake Ass news. Union boss shill.
Farmers have never had to contend with vagaries of weather before- or have they?
“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.’ “
It is time to remind readers and “journalists” that anectodal experiences/claims are not scientific evidence/proof.
The good news is that will no longer have to, once we tax industry enough.
The article does not read that his entire crop was 20 acres only that 20 acres of crop were ruined. But you are right that if it is only 20 acres he has a hobby garden not a farm.
I hope you can recover from the loss of crop yield. I don’t farm but I imagine every bit makes a difference in the bottom line.
Sorry to hear you had a rain-out. Bummer. Better success next year.
The scientists have seen eensy weensy warming (much of it due to mitigation of particulate pollution) and the farmers have seen how the earth adjusts to this. More water evaporates from oceans and it rains harder, while showing more cloud cover that shields from sunlight.
Someone tell these Climate Change idiots that it is worse than they thought! Here we are drowning in torrential rains in North Texas, and yet four years ago we had a drought! Hell, less than 100 years ago, we had a Dust Bowl! These rains MUST be caused by Climate Change, right?
These people are EFFING IDIOTS, who will buy anything, so long as the Government sold it to them! People who believe in “Climate Change” are the living embodiment of the old saying, “Don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining!”
Climate Change is nothing more than a means to collect as much wealth from the willing and gullible! There is no machine or means to change the weather (we humans are too infinitesimal to this great planet)!! These same people will be begging for money to stop the Sun from becoming a red-giant, and those left alive after that, will be begging for money to stop the Sun from becoming a white-dwarf!
NOTE: NO AMOUNT OF MONEY WILL EVER MAKE HUMANS ABLE TO CONTROL THINGS NOT WITHIN THEIR CONTROL - PERIOD!!
Sounds like it was an area that was scheduled to be harvested last, but oh bummer, it rained hard and couldn’t be.
Old Mac Donald never had a rainout?
It’s much cheaper to adapt to whatever the earth and sun deals out than to try vainly to fix it to like yesteryear.
I you talk to the press you have to have something to say and it helps if it is something that the press wants to hear.
But every farmer I ever knew always had one eye on the weather and the other on the commodities report. My granddad listened to the Farm Report on the radio every morning and part of that report was the weather report.
From the earliest writing about farming, farmers feared the weather. Bad weather could wipe a farmer out. Watch the movie The Grapes of Wrath. It is a socialist screed but it correctly depicts how weather can destroy a farm and a break a farmer.
Modern times hasnt really changed much. Look back to the 1970s-80s and all of the farm foreclosures.
Most small farmers have a full time job besides working their farm.
Most will have equity loans to buy their seed, fertilizer and pesticides in the spring and pay off the loans when they sell their crop in the fall.
If they dont buy crop insurance and the crop fails, they are hurting. Some dont buy insurance because they cant afford it.
Farmers are on a thin margin, so yes, they fear the weather and always have.
But farmers are also political like everyone else so some of them are going to believe the AGW propaganda.
Is it possible to switch to rice paddies in a year that is expected to be rainy?
This fall was very wet and harvesting was difficult. An anomaly that only occurs about every 6 years for the last 5000 yrs.
There is no science in this “science.”
These people are insane. The freaking pioneers lost crops to bad weather for goodness sakes.
Crop insurance claim on 20 acres is pocket change, probably less than $100 per acre.
This story gives nonsense a bad name.
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.