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Illinois soybean farmer witnesses effects of climate change in ruined crops
CBS "News" ^ | November 26, 2018

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 ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: Illinois
KEYWORDS: climatechange; climatechangefraud; dnctalkingpoint; dnctalkingpoints; globalwarming; globalwarminghoax; hoax; illinois; propaganda; socialism
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To: HiTech RedNeck
Is it possible to switch to rice paddies in a year that is expected to be rainy?

I never knew anybody that grew rice, so I really can’t say.

As far as I know it is a grass and doesn’t require any special equipment to plant or harvest, so I would guess that you could plant it in place of wheat.

The real problem with growing rice is that you need a place to sell it. In my area I don’t know of any grain elevator that buys it. So, a farmer that decides to grow it may have to truck it a long way to sell it.

81 posted on 11/26/2018 12:36:39 PM PST by Pontiac (The welfare state must fail because it is contrary to human nature and diminishes the human spirit)
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To: Farmer Dean

So in your own scientific opinion, people who don’t believe in Global Warming don’t know what they’re talking about because your bean patch was a little damp this year?

Where do you live. Let’s talk about your climatological expertise.

In the mean time, digest this. It may not be your neighborhood, but still. You’re not winning any wars with bullshit anecdotal evidence, Farmer Bean.

https://www.isws.illinois.edu/statecli/climate-change/NE-IL-trends/rainfall.htm

Mind you, this doesn’t even go back two hundred years, they pick a BS point to start with when we were coming out of a mini-ice age.


82 posted on 11/26/2018 12:41:20 PM PST by Travis T. OJustice (<---Time Magazine's 2006 Person of the Year)
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To: Hot Tabasco

“When you google Jim Benham, articles quote him as being Head of the Indiana Farmers Union..........”

Were you Paul Harvey in another life with “the rest of the story”? Good catch - and the MSM wonders how they get the moniker of “fake news”...let’s mark this Exhibit XXX.


83 posted on 11/26/2018 12:51:43 PM PST by T-Bird45 (It feels like the seventies, and it shouldn't.)
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To: lastchance

I’m insured,I just hate to lose something of value.


84 posted on 11/26/2018 1:02:50 PM PST by Farmer Dean (168 grains of instant conflict resolution)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Ruined soybeans is GOOd news.


85 posted on 11/26/2018 1:04:44 PM PST by montag813
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To: Farmer Dean
Never had a year as wet in the fall as this one.

Just curious,what crops do you grow? And isn't the fall the time of year when such crops are harvested? So how did the rain affect your crops?

86 posted on 11/26/2018 1:13:59 PM PST by Hot Tabasco
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To: Cletus.D.Yokel

Twenty acres is a postage stamp in the realm of crop farming. NASS (National Agricultural Statistics Service) is projecting a 64 bushel average yield for Illinois in 2018. The 64 bushel yield in 2018 will be the highest state yield in Illinois, surpassing the last record yield of 59 bushels per acre set in 2016.


87 posted on 11/26/2018 1:22:43 PM PST by LadyShires
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To: wbarmy

never heard of anyone with 20 acres of soybean called a soybean farmer.
Can’t tell from the article if the 20 acres is his whole crop or part of it.
The farmer who farms our fields has 800 acres of beans he can’t combine right now cause it’s wet. But that’s only part of his crop.
2 words. Crop Insurance.
2 more words. Stop whining.


88 posted on 11/26/2018 1:22:59 PM PST by Palio di Siena
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To: Cletus.D.Yokel

20 acres @ 45 bushels per acre = 900 bushels.
beans are about $8.50 per bushel.
$7500 loss. Big deal. Not.


89 posted on 11/26/2018 1:28:24 PM PST by Palio di Siena
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

I guess between wildlife, bugs, fungi,
and weather, it just doesn’t pay to
farm....
I’ve seen the destruction that feral
hogs can to to 20 acres of crops. In
one night. And the hogs don’t seem to
care about weather conditions. I’ve
millions of blackbirds wipe out 20
acres of sunflowers.


90 posted on 11/26/2018 1:47:52 PM PST by Lean-Right (Eat More Moose)
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To: Hot Tabasco

I would normally combine my soybeans at the end of September but it rained every 2-3 days.I grow wheat,oats,corn,and soybeans.I’m considering growing some barley-a couple of local small breweries have expressed an interest.


91 posted on 11/26/2018 1:52:15 PM PST by Farmer Dean (168 grains of instant conflict resolution)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

“When we have a rain event, we’re not getting an inch; we’re getting two and three and four inches,...”

In some circles, it’s called “atmospheric compression”, and can be attributed in part to increased cosmic rays due to the sun’s low magnetic activity.

It’s happening all over the world.


92 posted on 11/26/2018 2:07:29 PM PST by DuncanWaring (The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

A simple map search will show that Versailles, Ill is a low-land swampy area between some lakes and a wide, flat stretch of the Illinois River.


93 posted on 11/26/2018 2:34:04 PM PST by VanShuyten ("...that all the donkeys were dead. I know nothing as to the fate of the less valuable animals.")
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

I’m gonna take a wild guess and say he’s probably a democrat


94 posted on 11/26/2018 3:16:56 PM PST by Pollard (If you don't understand what I typed, you haven't read the classics.)
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OMG....farmers have never lost a crop before to unfavorable weather....20 acres of soybeans???.....is it even feasible to plant such a small amount? This story is pure BS.....


95 posted on 11/26/2018 3:40:54 PM PST by TnTnTn
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96 posted on 11/26/2018 3:48:11 PM PST by SunkenCiv (and btw -- https://www.gofundme.com/for-rotator-cuff-repair-surgery)
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