Do you grow commercially?
How’s it lookin’ out there?
Farmers here in the Big Valley are talking about 50% increases in input costs, including water.
I grow a few crops commercially, but not on the same scale as most farms. I specialize in producing seeds for other people to plant :)
Things are going to get rough. Most of the farms surrounding mine are conventional. Because of the terrain most of the fields aren’t irrigated. The water table is close enough to the surface that it usually isn’t a problem, but if we get a serious drought it could be. The local meat processor had a wait list 2 years long and growing last I checked, so even if some farmers decided to shrink their herds their options would be limited.
I did notice that the manure spreaders seem not to be as active as usual yet. Most years, people start spreading manure before the ground is done thawing, just to make room in the tanks. I get the impression they’re trying to hold off this year so they can get the most out of it when they spread it. That’s just a guess though, I haven’t heard anybody actually say that.
Seeds, seed potatoes, bare-root plants, and baby chicks all seem to be selling a bit faster than usual, although not as fast as they did early in the pandemic. People aren’t panicking, but they’re definitely bracing themselves. And anybody with gardening space is trying to plan how to get the most out of it. That’s been a popular discussion topic lately!
I think the area where my farm is will probably do ok. There’s a strong culture of “every problem has a solution, and we’re gonna find it”, especially in the rural areas. A few years ago when I was working at a call center, there was some serious flooding that knocked out a lot of the roads. Some of my coworkers traveled by kayak part of the way, but when talking about it they acted like that was no big deal. I expect they’ll deal with food shortages and supply disruptions the same way.
All the same, I have books on how to modify an engine to run on wood or charcoal, ready to lend out if my neighbors need them. And I’m working on putting together ways to formulate animal feeds for things like chickens, which normally get store-bought food. We’ll see what happens.