Serious issues with weather in the Midwest effecting food prices

[Gumboy]

So this spring was absolutely awful here in the midwest. Some areas are exempt, but holy damn was it a cold, extremely wet spring. I usually have a full garden by now, but this year? I don't have a single thing that made it through. My garden was literally drowned.

Was it just my garden? I highly doubt it. I drive past many corn fields every day for work, and they are simply not growing at the rate they should be, and that effects everything.

I am not some insane prepper, but if you have the spare funds now, I would highly recommend buying bulk meats and vegetable (That are still good after frozen) now, because this is going to be the worst fall in a long time. I have never in my life seen a growing season as bad as this one.


Its funny because the west has this awful drought, and we have far to much rain and it is literally drowning crops. The midwest has been incredibly lucky (Or just normal, depending on who you ask) about weather for our harvests for the last 20+ years, but this one is shaping up to be one of the all time worsts on record.

I am personally effected because I usually get all my fresh peppers and herbs from my garden, but none of them have come this year, it has been literally impossible to grow

Another funny thing about it is the mosquito's have been so much worse this year, the wet weather has seemingly improved there breeding like crazy, and mosquitos are everywhere

[Crissi]

Considering that North Texas got anywhere between 3-6 inches of rain in less than a week, and have had about 3-4 flash floods since the beginning of may, I am NOT looking forward to mosquito summer and fall. I predict an uptick in West Nile Virus..AGAIN.

That has probably been the wettest June in like 7 years here >.> On the bright side, our lakes have gained between 1 and 5 feet!

[Gumboy]

Mosquitos are so off the chain here. I went for a walk at dusk and though I might literally die of blood loss before I got home, and I was swatting them constantly.

[Angella]

Try running instead of walking. Also run at off-twilight hours.

[Collegeguy]

I am not some insane prepper, but if you have the spare funds now, I would highly recommend buying bulk meats and vegetable (That are still good after frozen) now, because this is going to be the worst fall in a long time. I have never in my life seen a growing season as bad as this one.

Being from Minnesota, you should know one of the biggest wholesalers in the country is right by your doorstep that serves over 600,000 farms and their LLCs. There are always hickups here and there, but I have not heard of any information warranting any such drast action.

[lordmatthias]

I live west of the metro area and I commute into north Minneapolis every day. My commute takes me through a bunch of farm lands and there are definitely some problems, but I am not sure it is all that bad. Yields will definitely be lower this year due to large parts in fields that had flood patches, but stuff is still growing so there will be crops to harvest I believe. We have gotten an insane amount of rain though, I believe it was said on mpr that we are on pace for our wetest year on record.

On a side note it was fun to power through some flooded roads, but I feel bad for homeowners that have had flooding in their houses :/.

[Rukentuts]

The situation in California is/will be affecting food prices a lot more than this rain here ever could.

[Wildtree]

So this spring was absolutely awful here in the midwest. Some areas are exempt, but holy damn was it a cold, extremely wet spring. I usually have a full garden by now, but this year? I don't have a single thing that made it through. My garden was literally drowned.

Was it just my garden? I highly doubt it. I drive past many corn fields every day for work, and they are simply not growing at the rate they should be, and that effects everything.

I am not some insane prepper, but if you have the spare funds now, I would highly recommend buying bulk meats and vegetable (That are still good after frozen) now, because this is going to be the worst fall in a long time. I have never in my life seen a growing season as bad as this one.


Its funny because the west has this awful drought, and we have far to much rain and it is literally drowning crops. The midwest has been incredibly lucky (Or just normal, depending on who you ask) about weather for our harvests for the last 20+ years, but this one is shaping up to be one of the all time worsts on record.

I am personally effected because I usually get all my fresh peppers and herbs from my garden, but none of them have come this year, it has been literally impossible to grow

Another funny thing about it is the mosquito's have been so much worse this year, the wet weather has seemingly improved there breeding like crazy, and mosquitos are everywhere

Uhm.......... While you are totally right with mentioning the problem..... You got some shit wrong..
The midwest suffers a drought for the third consecutive year. Do not let that excessive rainfall we suffer now fool you.

The meat prices being up, is for example a result of the brutal drought from last year. Here in my part (NE/IA border region) the corn fields died, burned essentially by the sun. The lack of corn caused ranchers and farmers having to sell their livestock, since they could not feed it anymore.
Now we have farmers and ranchers with herds that have to be brought back up for a few years again, until they can start selling cattle at the common rate.
This means, we don't have as much meat supply as usual, and the prices went up.

Regarding the flooding....
The intense droughts dried out the soil, hardened it, so water cannot get into the soil as usual and large amounts just slipping off of it. That's causing flooding.
Have a look at the drought monitor.. Despite the constant battering of the lands by storms. Missouri, parts of Nebraska, and Kansas are still affected by the drought. And once the tornado season comes to an end, in the next couple or three weeks, the drought is back in full swing, covering all these states again.

http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

[Ghostpanther]

Uhm.......... While you are totally right with mentioning the problem..... You got some shit wrong..
The midwest suffers a drought for the third consecutive year. Do not let that excessive rainfall we suffer now fool you.

The meat prices being up, is for example a result of the brutal drought from last year. Here in my part (NE/IA border region) the corn fields died, burned essentially by the sun. The lack of corn caused ranchers and farmers having to sell their livestock, since they could not feed it anymore.
Now we have farmers and ranchers with herds that have to be brought back up for a few years again, until they can start selling cattle at the common rate.
This means, we don't have as much meat supply as usual, and the prices went up.

Regarding the flooding....
The intense droughts dried out the soil, hardened it, so water cannot get into the soil as usual and large amounts just slipping off of it. That's causing flooding.
Have a look at the drought monitor.. Despite the constant battering of the lands by storms. Missouri, parts of Nebraska, and Kansas are still affected by the drought. And once the tornado season comes to an end, in the next couple or three weeks, the drought is back in full swing, covering all these states again.

http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

That may be true in Iowa, but not the case in Ohio. We had a wet year last year and I can not remember the last drought we had. And so far this year we are close to 4" above normal for rainfall. And it may be more inches than that in some areas. Last week, I know some places got 4 - 5 " in less than 24 hrs.

[Wildtree]

I live west of the metro area and I commute into north Minneapolis every day. My commute takes me through a bunch of farm lands and there are definitely some problems, but I am not sure it is all that bad.

it is that bad, here too.....
But it isn't really the rain.. That would be welcomed by our farmers. It's been the tornadoes and hailstorms that destroyed the crops.
We've had an EF2 tornado going through the outskirts of our town (1500 ppl population) here, 2 weeks ago. While I wasn't directly subject to the tornado itself, the storm conditions it brought along were sufficient to leave my car like a moon landscape from hail damage. To destroy a 50 ft tree in on my property, destroying my roof, and 2 sides of my house's siding. We had golf ball size hail pounding the town for some 15 minutes. EF2 means up to 135 miles winds.
My neighbors home garden is completely destroyed. All plants are gone. I myself got lucky with that one. I only planted 2 tomato plants, 3 peppers, 1 cucumber and 1 basil. All but one pepper survived. My laziness paid off. I planted them all around my deck, so I wouldn't have to walk 50 yards down to the garden section of my property lol, The rail around the deck somehow protected the plants enough from getting hammered.

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That may be true in Iowa, but not the case in Ohio. We had a wet year last year and I can not remember the last drought we had. And so far this year we are close to 4" above normal for rainfall. And it may be more inches than that in some areas. Last week, I know some places got 4 - 5 " in less than 24 hrs.

Would you call Ohio already midwest? It's fairly east, and quite a bit away from the middle

[NoRest4Wicked]

it is that bad, here too.....
But it isn't really the rain.. That would be welcomed by our farmers. It's been the tornadoes and hailstorms that destroyed the crops.
We've had an EF2 tornado going through the outskirts of our town (1500 ppl population) here, 2 weeks ago. While I wasn't directly subject to the tornado itself, the storm conditions it brought along were sufficient to leave my car like a moon landscape from hail damage. To destroy a 50 ft tree in on my property, destroying my roof, and 2 sides of my house's siding. We had golf ball size hail pounding the town for some 15 minutes. EF2 means up to 135 miles winds.
My neighbors home garden is completely destroyed. All plants are gone. I myself got lucky with that one. I only planted 2 tomato plants, 3 peppers, 1 cucumber and 1 basil. All but one pepper survived. My laziness paid off. I planted them all around my deck, so I wouldn't have to walk 50 yards down to the garden section of my property lol, The rail around the deck somehow protected the plants enough from getting hammered.

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Would you call Ohio already midwest? It's fairly east, and quite a bit away from the middle

"As defined by the federal government, it comprises the states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. It includes much of the Great Plains, the region of the Great Lakes, and the upper Mississippi River valley. Variants of MIDWEST."

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/midwest

I always found it funny we are considered midwest as well.

[Ghostpanther]

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Would you call Ohio already midwest? It's fairly east, and quite a bit away from the middle

Yes we are. It is fairly east, but they had to have a cutoff going east somewhere and they picked Ohio. :P

[NoRest4Wicked]

That may be true in Iowa, but not the case in Ohio. We had a wet year last year and I can not remember the last drought we had. And so far this year we are close to 4" above normal for rainfall. And it may be more inches than that in some areas. Last week, I know some places got 4 - 5 " in less than 24 hrs.

The national weather service labeled our 2012 summer as a "moderate to severe drought" and made comparisons to the really bad 1988 drought we had.

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/iln/climo/su.../1988_2012.php
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index...northeast.html

[Wildtree]

Yes we are. It is fairly east, but they had to have a cutoff going east somewhere and they picked Ohio. :P

As non-American those territories frequently throwing me off. I struggle with memorizing them

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The national weather service labeled our 2012 summer as a "moderate to severe drought" and made comparisons to the really bad 1988 drought we had.

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/iln/climo/su.../1988_2012.php
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index...northeast.html

Here's an article from 2012 too
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/...ver/57816198/1

This one is good too... The pic in the article shown.... That's exactly how the fields looked now 2 years in a row. This year has yet to be seen.
http://deltafarmpress.com/southern-c...t-money-paid-o

[Ghostpanther]

The national weather service labeled our 2012 summer as a "moderate to severe drought" and made comparisons to the really bad 1988 drought we had.

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/iln/climo/su.../1988_2012.php
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index...northeast.html

Apparently that was the case in some zones in Ohio. But it was not the case in the part of Ohio I live in. I was here in the 1988 drought , which was very severe. About 23" for the whole year, when about 37 - 38" is normal. No way was 2012 that bad in this part of Ohio. In fact I do not even remember it being a dry year in 2012. The amount of rainfall can vary a lot in a state at times.

[usiris]

Mosquitos are so off the chain here. I went for a walk at dusk and though I might literally die of blood loss before I got home, and I was swatting them constantly.

Are you up north?

I haven't seen a single one in the city yet.