There’s a lot of hype out there regarding the drought and its potential effects on crops. Predictions range from increased food prices to dustbowlification”, a term coined by “Joe Romm. A complicit media follows. Tom Nelson points out some interesting facts:
Drought to cost $12B, most since 1988 – USATODAY.com
The Kiwis think otherwise though, from radio New Zealand: July 26, 2012 : Worst drought in 50 years driving up US food prices
Food prices in the United States are expected to rise by 3% or 4% next year because of the worst drought in more than 50 years. Corn, soybean and other commodity prices have all soared in recent weeks as fields dry out and crops wither in the heat. The drought, which is affecting much of the Midwest, is the worst since 1956.
What Drought Did to Crop Yields in the 1930s – Livinghistory.com
In 1930, Nebraska got 22 inches of rain, and the state’s corn crop averaged 25 bushels per acre. In 1934, Nebraska saw the driest year on record with only 14.5 inches of rainfall. The state’s corn crop dropped even more to only 6.2 bushels per acre.
[See table 1 here: For five Nebraska locations, median forecasted yields for rainfed corn are 118-130 bushels per acre; for irrigated corn, the median forecasted yields are 228-245 bushels per acre]
From the University of Nebraska-Lincoln:
End-of-Season Yield Potentials as of July 15
Corn Yield Potential (Yp) forecasts, as well as the underpinning data used for the simulations, can be seen in Table 1. The long-term yield potential prediction based on 30 years of weather data (Table 1, fourth column from the right) is compared to the range of predicted 2012 corn yield potential (three columns on the right), which includes the yield potential simulated under the most likely scenario of weather expected for the rest of the season (median) and for relatively favorable and unfavorable scenarios for the rest of the season (75th and 25th percentiles) based on historical weather data.
According to the July 15 simulations, the “most likely” end-of-season dryland corn yield potential in Nebraska, Iowa, and southeastern Illinois (“median” yields, red column in Table 1) is 10% to 26% below the long-term average yield potential (Table 1). Even if weather turns favorable for dryland corn during the rest of the 2012 season, the resulting yields (75th yields, blue column in Table 1) are still likely to be below the long-term average (Table 1). How about if dry and hot conditions persist? Certainly the likehood and magnitude of yield reduction in dryland corn will increase. In fact, Hybrid-Maize predicts dryland corn yield potential to be about 30% to 40% below the long-term average if weather remains hot and dry for the rest of the season (25th yields, green column in Table 1). The only bright spots in this analysis were in Illinois at DeKalb and Monmouth where rainfall during the past two weeks appears to have provided relief. At these sites, current projects indicate that end-of-season yields will be near their long-term averages unless weather once again turns dry and hot at those locations (Table 1). Likewise, recent weather conditions at Brookings, S.D. have been conducive to achieve yields near the long-term average.
What about irrigated corn in Nebraska? Contrary to the projections for dryland corn, irrigated corn yield potential is only two to three bushels below the long-term average at Holdrege, Mead, and Concord (Table 1). High nighttime temperatures during the last two weeks at Clay Center have hastened crop development and increased nighttime respiration costs, leading to a projected yield potential that is 9 bushels below the long-term average. At O’Neill last week’s weather did not depart from historical temperature norms, hence, projected yield potential is still near-average. But it is important to keep in mind that if hot weather persists for the rest of the season, the likehood (and magnitude) of below-average yields will increase for irrigated corn due to more rapid maturation and a shorter grain-filling period.
Summary
Projected 2012 end-of-season yields are well below the long-term yield average for dryland corn in Nebraska, Iowa, and southeastern Illinois and near average in South Dakota and central-west Illinois. Projected yield for irrigated corn in Nebraska is slightly below average at most locations, except for Clay Center, which it’s 9 bushels below average and O’Neill where it’s near average. If hot, dry conditions persist during coming weeks, we expect projected yields will drop substantially under both dryland and irrigated conditions. We will continue to update these projections as the season progresses.
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The reality check is: Even with the bad news of reduced yields of regular corn at 22-42 bu/ac below average, and trrigated corn at 2-9 bu/ac below average, 2012 Nebraska corn yields are still forecasted to be 20-40 times the 1934 Nebraska corn yields.
Yes it was really so much worse in the 1930’s than the present:
h/t to Steve Goddard and this EPA report for the above graph and points.
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A. Scott says:
July 26, 2012 at 10:07 pm
The July USDA Crop Report – the one that was issued after their downgrade of the current crop – showed:
Even after the downgrade, which was before the recent rains in much of the corn belt, the estimated corn crop is projected to be 12,720 million bushels, almost exactly the same as 2011 and 2010′s 12,358 and 12,447 respectively.
Absolutely true the amounts are almost the same. What is not the same is the number of mouths that want that food. The US and world population is increasing (the US mainly through immigration). So at the Thanksgiving table you now have an extra 4 seats but “almost exactly the same as 2011 and 2010″ amount of food. There are no US reserves as the holding of reserves pushed down prices. Paul Ehrlich’s bomb was defused by the continual increase in food output. Perhaps it will start ticking again.
@SocialBlunder
“Crispin – please address your concerns about quantificaton and validity of nighttime heat to the author of the blog entry.”
Noted and thanks. Yes they need to put numbers on the claims for big changes in night time temps. Hubris as far as I can see.
The discussion above about the total yield compared with other years is very helpful. It seems that whatever is taking place re temperatures, it is really helping the total food crop, all developments considered.
I note the doubling of exports to Mexico. This has had the effect of driving most farmers in N and NW Mexico out of business and has introduced GM genes into virtually every established local (historical) variety. In other words the gene bank and the farmers are being lost because of subsidised maize from the USA. I doubt this is a good thing.
Several posters have made comments regarding the fact that the corn belt has gotten a few inches of rain over the past week. The term that comes to mind regarding that rainfall is:
“Day late and a dollar short”
Corn, even the GM versions much of the US uses, needs a steady supply of water. Ideally around 1.75 inches per week. Some areas went 5-6 weeks without significant rainfall <0.5 inches. This lack of rainfall was during the time when corn is normally 'stalking up' and when the ears were forming.
This period of dry will cause a double whammy hit on yields, as the stalks were small when the ears were forming, we will see less per stalk; and we will have much smaller ears due to the lack of water when the ears were budding.
Not that I am unhappy with us finally seeing rain, but coming now, the best we can hope for is to see the ears fill out well, but considering that the rain we have been seeing is only slightly above the 1.75" per week that corn prefers, that is a hope.
Now, if we want to look at the soy bean crop, prepare for real despair.
Bill Illis says: July 27, 2012 at 6:12 am
I’d like to know if my charts are not coming through properly.
Bill, I gave some misinformation at 5:09 am, had no coffee yet. The original charts came up with a black background, with orange and green plot lines; not a white background as I stated earlier.
I could not get the axis labels to come through by simply copying the picture. I had to do a screen capture. I inverted the colors on the whole graph to get a white(almost) background, leaving the text white, so I dampened the mid-range levels of the picture to enhance the contrast with the white text, ie. darker grey background.
There are some folks here who are gonna be really, really surprised at the yield reports when the combines roll. The initial USDA forecast in Jan was ridiculously high, and they are still ridiculously high. One needs to look at the World Agricutural Supply and Demand reports to see where we are.
But demand for corn is at least a little higher today than it was in the 1930’s, including exports, use in fuels, as animal feed, and for human consumption. So this analysis appears to only be part of the story. What appears to be needed is a comparison of supply and the potential yield reductions versus consumption by all categories of “consumer” (including automobile gas tanks under the Congressional Mandate).
The numbers simply do not support that position.
When we look at Total US Corn Production – the total 2011 harvest was 12,358 million bushels vs a total US population of 311.59 million people – that amounts to 39.66 bushels per person in the US.
The total projected 2012 harvest, using the downgraded yields in July USDA report (which with recent rains and cooler temps will be overstated – yields will be higher than the downgraded numbers) will be 12,970 million bushels vs a total US population of 314.04 million people – that amounts to 41.30 bushels per person in the US.
End of year reserves were in 2011 were 903 million bushels, or 2.89 bushels per person in the US, compared to projected 2012 reserves of 1,183 million bushels – or 3.77 bushels per person in the US.
If we look at Total US Domestic Use – all uses of corn (food, alcohol, industrial, feed, seed and other uses) – 2011 was 11,005 million bushels vs 2012’s 11,120 million bushels – 35.4 bushels per person in 2012 vs 35.3 bushels per person in 2011.
When compared against US production only (excluding imports) in 2011 we produced 1,153 million bushels in 2011 and 1,850 million bushels in 2012 more than our US domestic use needs.
Even at the USDA’s drought reduced projected yields and acres harvested – we have more corn – in total and per capita – in 2012 than in 2011. And with recent rains and cooler weather in Upper Midwest corn belt those projections will be IMO low – the harvest should be considerably better.
In essentially every measure of the 2012 US Corn crop – even if the USDA worst case numbers are correct – we are in better position than 2011.
And even with the smaller projected crop our exports are projected to remain the same – 1,600 million bushels – in 2012 as 2011 … and we are still projected to make up the 225 million bushel drop in reserves from 2010 to 2011 and increase reserves from 2010 by another 55 million bushels.
If you believe the USDA numbers – and they are the experts – there simply is no valid reason for all the fear mongering about the drought reduced harvest numbers – even adjusting for US population increase.
These numbers are from: http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/FeedGrains/
Damned if we do (supply more food and feed corn to Mexico) and vilified if we don’t …
The US doubled its corn exports to Mexico from 2008 to 2011 but 2011’s 1,419 million bushels of US feed and white corn combined were still only 13.54% of Mexico’s total imports. Argentinian and Ukrainian and Brazilian corn is markedly lower price than US Corn -around $270 per metric tonne vs US corn at appx $310
According to http://www.world-grain.com Mexico’s corn imports are expected to decrease for 2012 – forecast at 9.5 million tonnes, down from 11 million.
The US does way more than its fair share – we produce 36% of the world corn but supply 41% of the total world corn exports … the next 3 producers – Argentinia, Ukraine and Brazil all combined roughly equal the US exports.
Last – the US is projected to export virtually exactly the same – 40 million metric tonnes – as in 2011.
Ian W says: @ur momisugly July 27, 2012 at 6:41 am
…Absolutely true the amounts are almost the same. What is not the same is the number of mouths that want that food….
_________________________
As I said before it is complicated. Not only as Ian said are their more mouths to feed, (in July 2012 ~ 7,057,075,000 people in the world compared to ~ 6,892,319,000 in July of 2010) their tastes have changed. What is missing is the increasing appetite of China and India as their population joins the ‘middle class’ link
Not sure where you see that from the WASDE Report?
The WASDE latest (July 11) update incorporates the same exact USDA reductions as I’ve been quoting from the USDA reports … it showed following changes from their initial projections:
http://www.usda.gov/oce/commodity/wasde/latest.pdf
2012 planted acreage slightly increased, from 95.9 to 96.4 mill/acres vs 91.9 in 2011
2012 harvested acreage slightly decreased, from 89.1 to 88.9 mill/acres vs 84 in 2011
2012 Yield/acre was reduced, from 166 to 146 bu/acre vs 147.2 in 2011 (and 152.8 in 2010)
2012 Production decreased, from 14,790 to 12,970 mill/bushels vs 12,358 in 2011
2012 ethanol use decreased, from 5,450 to 4900 mill/bushels vs 5,000 in 2011 (and 2010)
2012 Exports decreased, from 1,900 to 1600 mill/bushels SAME as the 1,600 in 2011
2012 Reserves decreased from projection, from 1,881 to 1,183 mill/bushels – even this reserve however is significantly higher than both 2011’s 903 and 2010’s 1,128
The initial projections for yields were higher than 2011 – however this projection was made in Jun 2012 and at that time the corn crop had hugely benefited from near perfect conditions. A very early start to planting, early warm weather and copious but not flooding rains etc. Doesn’t seem out of line at all considering.
The July report did reflect the drought conditions … it reduced the projected 2012 harvested vs planted production by nearly 19% from original projections vs a more typical 8% drop.
Since then rains and cooler temps – while they will not save all crops will at least limit the damage and in some cases significantly improve production.
Reuters poll of analysts paints a bleaker than USDA picture but these are guys that benefit from commodities prices and especially from increased prices – so I take with grain of salt. USDA is collecting the crop data – these guys are interpreting it.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/07/24/usa-drought-crops-idINL2E8IOB2B20120724
Here is the detailed weekly crop progress report from NOAA/USDA – they spend considerable time on the drought conditions. Will be interesting to see what next weeks report says.
http://www.usda.gov/oce/weather/pubs/Weekly/Wwcb/wwcb.pdf
As noted by other the above map of several States is incorrect, perhaps a mod can visit the link for the map and relink. If the original University map was wrong, it has been corrected on their site.
You wouldn’t want misinformation archived, right?
Pofarmer says: @ur momisugly July 27, 2012 at 12:29 pm
There are some folks here who are gonna be really, really surprised at the yield reports when the combines roll. The initial USDA forecast in Jan was ridiculously high, and they are still ridiculously high. One needs to look at the World Agricutural Supply and Demand reports to see where we are.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
A. Scott says: @ur momisugly July 27, 2012 at 3:28 pm
The July report did reflect the drought conditions … it reduced the projected 2012 harvested vs planted production by nearly 19% from original projections vs a more typical 8% drop.
Since then rains and cooler temps – while they will not save all crops will at least limit the damage and in some cases significantly improve production….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Actually you are both right. It depends on who is planting what where. When NAFTA wiped out 75% of the Mexican peasant farmers Big Ag like Smithfield moved in. (Remember the swine flu scare was traced to a Mexican Smithfield farm?) (World wide Locations)
Here in the USA crops do not tassel or ripen on the same day so a country-wide drought will not necessarily effect the corn in NC the same way it effects the corn in Nebraska. Heck a farmer can intentionally stagger planting or plant crop varieties with different ripening dates to spread out harvesting and hedge his bets. Purdue University has a nice readable article on the subject: Assessing Effects of Drought on Corn Grain Yield
However as several of us have already pointed out this does not mean the MSM and commodity traders are not taking advantage by hyping a scare so trading is effected.
Thank you that is much much better.
Since I am red green colorblind, chart color choices often make then useless to me but barely acceptable to people with normal color vision.
Larry
The original posts here were literally unreadable to me.
Keep in mind 10% or slightly more of your audience is red-green colorblind and color combinations with poor gray tone separation are often indistinguishable to us.
For example dark green on a black background, dark blue red or purple on a black background, pale pastel greens and yellows, pale blues, lavanders, violets etc, without using color picker tools to read the actual color triplet of the chart traces I cannot tell these apart.
For me a pale cyan trace on an off white or pale yellow background is literally invisible, I won’t even know it is there unless there is some other clue to its existence. One way to provide that clue is to use different line styles or widths on colors in the same color family (ie blue, purple, or browns greens and reds. Or you can use only strongly contrasting color saturation differences, a bright intense blue vs a pale lavender I can tell them apart. If both have approximately the same grey tone, no chance without manually picking colors and figuring them out, and even then it is very tedious. My solution is often to ignore illustrations that are that much work to make sense of unless I have a great deal of interest in their content.
Change your charts to grey tone and if the grays do not have greater than 10% difference it is probably a bad choice of colors.
Larry
And Gail …. this year the staggered harvest is even more pronounced due to the nearly ideal early conditions of a dry and warm spring which allowed planting to be weeks early ….
Wow that is frigging bazaar — it is browser specific!
In fire fox that png comes up with an 87% gray background making the black text unreadable.
In internet exploder, it shows with a white background.
What software are you using to prepare the png image???
It is outputting a png that is not user friendly to firefox, and giving bogus background color information some how.
I have never had a problem with my images on image shack having such violent color shifts, so I suspect it is something about the png conversion. Might try saving it as a gif , then hosting it on image shack and see if the same thing happens.
Moderators if Bill wants to communicate with me free to forward my email info to him, as I would like to know the source of this issue too!
Larry
[Understood. Robt]
Here is the 2011 US Corn Production Map:
http://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/Crops_County/cr-pr.asp
Here is the Drought Severity Map:
http://www.weather.com/maps/activity/garden/usdroughtseverity_large.html
Here are two maps for last week precip estimate:
http://www.weather.com/maps/activity/garden/weeklyrainfallestimate_large.html
http://www.intellicast.com/National/Precipitation/Weekly.aspx
The USDA Crop Report did show significant downgrades – acres projected to be harvested and yields. Some outside “analysts” are predicting the sky is falling. The USDA was more measured. Some farmers in online forums etc are pretty bleak – but then you don’t usually hear from those doing well.
Appears there was decent precip over much of the growing range over the last week – and at a fairly critical stage as I understand it. Will be interesting to see the USDA Crop Report this week.
A. Scott says:
July 28, 2012 at 3:11 pm
And Gail …. this year the staggered harvest is even more pronounced due to the nearly ideal early conditions of a dry and warm spring which allowed planting to be weeks early ….
_____________________________
The growing conditions here in NC were certainly terrific this spring. It was 60F to the 80sF from March til June 20th and decent rain with decent sunshine. You might not plant in March, but the extra warmth of the ground is going to effect the speed of the seed germination when you do plant in April. The fact that the ground did not go to solid brick (red clay) until mid June makes a difference too. A quick look at Kansas City, MO shows it was about the same as middle NC. Good growing conditions til late June.
The amount of residual soil moisture when a drought hits will make a big difference as that Purdue article pointed out. Even with the strike of high temps and no rain my grass is still green as Ireland and growing like weeds. If I get a thunderstorm once a week my grass will stand up to no rain for 14 days even if it is 90-100F. It is when it goes over 14 days that it gets a bit dicey.
Corn is a C4 plant and well adapted to high daytime temperatures and intense sunlight. Mexico where maise comes from is not exactly a benign climate.
That is my understanding as well – heat and sunlight are good … but water – or at least soil moisture – is also important.
In the upper Midwest as I understand it planting was as much as 3 to 5 weeks early this year due to early frost out, warm temps, and early lack of rain meaning fields were immediately accessible. Lack of spring flooding was also a big factor.
Soon after planting many areas saw monsoon rains which gave a big shot of soil moisture.
The best man can do against drought is to build dams.
“@SocialBlunder
“Crispin – please address your concerns about quantificaton and validity of nighttime heat to the author of the blog entry.”
Noted and thanks. Yes they need to put numbers on the claims for big changes in night time temps. Hubris as far as I can see.”
Working from the NCDC Global Summary of Day, I’ve calculated a Daily rising temp, the following nights drop in temp, and the difference between the two. Here is an introduction, and updated annual averages.
http://www.science20.com/virtual_worlds/blog/global_annual_daily_temperatures_19292010-81063
http://www.science20.com/virtual_worlds/blog/updated_temperature_charts-86742
There is no trend of a loss of nightly cooling at the surface.
I also took just the northern hemisphere (North of 23 Lat), and calculated a daily average, showing the daily difference as the seasons progress for 1950-2010, again there is no trend.
http://www.science20.com/files/images/1950-2010%20D100_0.jpg
A. Scott. I’ll try to be gentle. The July USDA numbers, when they were released, were already 3 weeks out of date. This is O.K. in a normal year, in a drought year it compounds their errors. Radar precipitation maps also generally GREATLY overstate the actual precip that hits the ground, especially in a drought. The extremely early planting dates and dry spring actually mean that corn planting was less staggered, not more, and it really doesn’t matter because in the scheme of things everything planted any time has gotten nailed. Also, look where this drought is centered. Some of the largest corn growing areas of the country, IL and IN. It has now progressed into IA and parts of MN, gotten most of NE, etc. The Jan projections by the USDA required EVERY state to exceed it’s old record production. Given the increase in acres in marginal growing areas, that was NEVER going to happen. At this point all they can do is reduce the numbers slowly so they don’t look like total idiots. Also, the WASDE reports are not about U.S. numbers. Look at world carryouts on oilseeds, corn, wheat, and coarse grains. They are headed the wrong way, and are now more strongly headed the wrong way. We are currently painted into a corner on grain production worldwide. The world wants more oilseeds, but we need more feed grains. This is going to leave a mark.
The costs in this post don’t include the higher prices for corn. If the crop comes in at 11 billion bushels at at a cost of an extra $2-3 per bushel, the cost to consumers is $22-33B.
@Tom:
Luckily we don’t live in the rest of the world…
Euro units are not particularly convenient nor have they done all that much to make teaching science easier. “Pounds per square inch” is much clearer than kPascals…
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/degrees-of-degrees/
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/01/30/unifying-the-cubits-the-yard-and-the-rod/
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/making-an-english-foot/
On the corn issue: If we just skipped mandating that corn be fed to cars for this year all of the “problem” goes away. It is the “Green Mandate” that is making food costs higher.
For all of those trashing Goldman Sachs & the rest of the speculators, you’re probably right to do so.
But do so with an eye to the whole picture, not just one snapshot.
For decades, agricultural subsidies have artificially kept prices low, devastating farmers in poorer countries and nations that refused to join the U.S. and Europe in their gluttonous overspending. Not only did this produce acres of wasted food in those countries — whole warehouses of butter rotted in some European countries, IIRC — but the rest of the world had their agricultural industries depleted. Many countries are now in a farmer crisis, where most farmers will retire in the next decade or two, with few coming up the ranks to take their place. That’s because so many people quit farming in previous decades due to depressed food prices.
Higher food prices are a bad thing, but only if they’re really high. Moderately high food prices drive investment in agriculture. Just like with natural gas and oil, the cure for high prices is high prices. The long term effect is to generate more food production, and — critically — higher capacity for food production.
In the grand scheme of things, the speculators are just correcting the short-term, kick-the-can-down-the-road politics of food that has distorted the food production system (and much else) since World War II.