Post by The Ambassador on Jun 22, 2019 16:53:20 GMT
Ohio farmland is underwater. That's big trouble for the corn industry
Carol Motsinger | Cincinnati Enquirer | Published 5:00 a.m. ET June 21, 2019
See video:[/font] www.cincinnati.com/videos/news/2019/06/19/farmers-too-much-rain/1501291001/
GREENVILLE, Ohio – Scott Labig spotted Larry Campbell's tractor from the seat of his John Deere, just on the other side of their shared fence.
These neighbors and friends have been planting side-by-side for 40 years in Darke County, one of Ohio's leading producers of corn and soybeans.
But this recent June day was different than any other day in those past four decades, and Labig had to call his friend about it. He needed reassurance, connection, encouragement. And it couldn't wait to talk until they were both done for the day.
Labig was doing something he had never done in his career. Something his father and his grandfather never did either in their time working this same land for the last century.
"I am ashamed of how I am planting corn today," Labig told Campbell on the phone. "This is terrible."
He was putting seeds into mud. How could things actually grow in this mess? It didn't feel like he was doing his job properly. It didn't look like a garden, he thought.
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Campbell knew what to say because he was telling himself the same thing as he plowed the mud on his side of the fence.
"Close your eyes and keep driving," he said.
Scott Labig stands in front of a field Monday June 17, 2019 that should be planted with
corn. An additional three inches of rain over the weekend made this area of his Darke
County land look more like a lake than a farm. (Photo: Cara Owsley/The Enquirer)
Those dire conditions are actually what good luck looks like for farmers this year. Labig and Campbell were, after all, able to plant something during the few days when the skies closed. Others in Ohio haven't planted a single seed in 2019 because of the unrelenting rain, particularly in the northwest corner of the state.
In a terrible twist, this is also the area most dependent on sunny skies and warm weather this time of year: These farmers typically produce 45 percent of all of Ohio's corn.
Still, the record-breaking deluge has put thousands of acres – and farmers – underwater across the state.
This time of year, Ohio's farmland should be alive and brand new again, peppered with the pop of bright green corn stalks already reaching the height of a tall man's shins. Instead, standing water comes up to the knee in some fields. Plots are more like muddy swamps where the only thing that's growing is mold and disease and mosquitoes.
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