Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Some of Montana’s dry field barley farmers had a bad year.
Montana Barley Fields Become Front Line For Climate Change And Beer
January 11, 20188:00 AM ET
JACKSON MITCHELL
A bumper sticker spotted in Montana reads, “No barley, no beer.” It’s a reminder that Montana’s barley farmers are struggling. Barley is an unforgiving crop that needs a precise recipe of water and sunshine to thrive — too much of either will cause it to wither and die. And amid a changing climate and unpredictable seasons, that’s exactly what’s happening.
Food and climate reporter Ari LeVaux (@AriLeVaux) joins Here & Now‘s Robin Young to talk about his recent article on the issue, reported in collaboration with The Weather Channel and the Food & Environment Reporting Network.
…
On visiting Montana barley fields during a flash drought
“In this case, [the fields] were dried up about two months early. That particular field had a dry-farmed crop of barley. We had to make a distinction in Montana between irrigated barley, in which the grower can turn the water on when necessary, and dry-farmed, in which the crop is planted and then hopefully harvested at the end of the season, but not much is done in between. So that dead field was a dry-farmed field that dried up in the flash drought of 2017. May and June were nice and wet, and all of a sudden the water stopped and the heat set in, and just did not relent, and by the time I made it out there, this was about three weeks into the flash drought and the barley was starting to die.”
…
On how the farmers talk — and don’t talk — about climate change
“It’s still a taboo subject in red-state America. Nobody wants to use it, even though they see it happening all around them. So they come up with different ways of talking about what’s happening around them, like, ‘The weather sure is different,’ or ‘unseasonable,’ or ‘Mother Nature is really effing with us.’ Maybe you could say, ‘Well, the climate’s kinda changing a little bit.’ But you couldn’t say ‘climate change.’ ”
On farmers discussing climate change in private
“Especially the younger farmers. As for why they don’t actually talk about it with each other, it’s an interesting question.”
…
The original article referenced in the interview was posted in December;
Climate change threatens Montana’s barley farmers – and possibly your beer
Warmer and more unpredictable weather has made it ever more challenging to grow malt barley, a crop that must meet exacting standards before it can be brewed into beer.
By Ari LeVaux, December 13, 2017
The heat last summer in Montana was brutal and unprecedented. Dry winds fanned wildfires across one million acres, ravaging grasslands in the eastern part of the state and scorching the timbered mountains west of the continental divide. In the tiny town of Power, which sits in the foothills of the Rockies, smack in the middle of the state’s grain belt, the smoke wasn’t as bad as elsewhere. But the relentless heat and lack of rain posed a serious threat to the area. This “flash drought,” as it became known, was devastating the crop that has driven the local economy for three generations: malt barley.
…
Read more: https://thefern.org/2017/12/climate-change-threatens-montanas-barley-farmers-possibly-beer/
People in distress are sometimes more receptive to false narratives.
The Flathead Indian Irrigation Project was established in 1908 to help farmers through bad years. Parts of Montana are currently suffering a severe drought, but droughts in Montana are not a new phenomenon.
A better irrigation network and greater reservoir capacity, to reduce dependency on the vagaries of the weather, would help barley farmers a lot more than the usual climate remedies. Wind turbines and solar panels would not help direct more rain to the fields of dryland farmers suffering through a drought.
Don’t panic, you can always buy best English malting barley, which never suffers from too much sunshine and always gets just the right amount of rain.
The ‘never too much sunshine’ I can certainly believe, but I don’t think I’ve EVER heard English rain described as ‘just the right amount’.
~¿~
As an ex beer drinker and barley grower I can only say:
Aw diddums. Poor little mites. Ma Nature is effing with you is she?
Its not At All as if you’ve been messing with her, what with tractors, cultivators, annual plants, monoculture, artificial fertiliser, artificial water not the very least.
Oh he11 no. You’re just sweet little innocents growing beer like our fathers and grandfathers did.
Have you ever heard of anything more (intellectually) pathetic as a ‘Flash Drought’?
Jeez
Take the gold medal at the buck passing event in the next Olympics why don’t you.
Two words in your ears lads: Soil Erosion
Take this ‘flash drought’ as a warning shot.
If you persist, and as brain-dead beer drinkers/sugar eaters you most certainly will, you will be wiped right off the surface of the Earth just as surely as the Phoenicians, Romans, Himyar, Rapa-Nui along with those who created the Sahara, Australia and desertified the Garden of Eden in modern day Iraq and thge same way as modern Californians are going.
Squished you will be. And if you turn Montana into a desert, may you be forced to rot in the very he11 you have created.
It will be for a very long time, if not forever.
Nah! Montana will get them before She ever turns into a desert. I have a friend who lives there. She told me there a places in that state where no one ever goes. I told her it sounded ominous. She said it IS.
And lo afore me, Michael and Gavin, and Kevin, Phillip and Stephan, let you unite within holy patriarchy and let no law suit or class action render assunder. Do you take this unholy allegience for good and bad, for sea level rise or fall, plagues, drought, typhoons, pestilence, crop disease and… economic collapse?
‘We do!!!’.
————=.
NPR is the Pravda of radio.
For years I gave to publuc radio.
Stopped years ago and don’t miss it.
NPR is the main reason.
Deceptive climate propaganda as discussed here is a great reason for even more people to stop giving.
NPR revenues in 2017 were up 10% over 2016.
Montana barley farmers laugh in the face of ManBearPig.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/media.agricharts.com/sites/54/MTcharts/Montana%20Production%20Charts%204.pdf
Montana is farmland? I thought it was better for ranches…
Why would that stop someone from farming? Humans are smarter and better than nature, right? (After all, global warming says we humans have the thermostat for the planet and we know how to use it…..)
Meanwhile, after two weeks of extreme global warming – induced arctic cold, we have just had a flash thaw. With climate change, the weather has become like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re going to get. / sarc
Notice that we are getting NPR’s climate-twisted version of how farmers (supposedly) talk or don’t talk about “climate change”. No farmer worth their salt would blame “climate change”. They know that the weather has always varied, and there are good years and bad ones.
Yes Bruce, the fact that farmers don’t buy into CAGW or socialism was quite evident in the last POTUS election statistics.
Spot on. I come from Iowa farming stock. I am frequently asked by uncles and cousins what I think of Climate Change. They all think it’s hooey, but assume because I was an engineer (city boy) that I buy into it.
Their idea of insurance is to plant the whole hill. Most years that results in great crops, but during flood years, they still have a rich crop on the upper hill sides and tops. in drought years, they still have a rich crop on the lower hill sides.
And of course, some years, the silly Government pays them to plant nothing at all!
Engineers don’t buy into CAGW. Social scientists do.
Excess of barley in the barley market, huh? Well, find a farmer who has an abundance of barley and another farmer who grows hops, and make Yer Own Brew. Craft beers can be fun.
It’ll find a market if you do it just right. Let’s call it Climate Flash Catastrophe Ale, and maybe even produce a stout version. I’ll talk to Five Beers about it. He’s in search of the perfect brew.
Grandpa did not have a climate controlled cab on his tractor like these guys today. When I combined soybeans my climate control was the size and type of hat and or jacket I wore. But even as easy as today’s farmers have it compared to grandpa, I still don’t know too many who are falling for the global warming/climate change/extreme weather or whatever new name they come up with. When you’re out in it even in a cooled/heated cab for enough hours, it’s hard not to realize a bs scam when you hear one. Like the old saying, on a different subject, it’s not how deep you plow but the time in the field that’s important.
Never mind ‘Beelzebub wept’. As Satan is my witness, there is no such thing, nor ever shall be, something that can be described as a “flash drought”. An almost unbelievable abuse of the English language. Streuth.
Montana Precip:
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/us/24/0/pcp/ytd/12/1895-2017?base_prd=true&firstbaseyear=1901&lastbaseyear=2000&trend=true&trend_base=100&firsttrendyear=1895&lasttrendyear=2017
Here’s an idea, not poor poor me. Soil health. Able to hold more water for times of less rain.
I wonder if there is a fine for not having soil health insurance.
A way to not be a victim is build up one’s soil health.
Smart Montana farmers have learned the value of pulse crops in conjunction with grains.
http://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/money/2015/08/27/pulse-crops-saving-montana-grain-farmers/32456249/
Excellent link.
Would the farmers go for a carbon tax on their fuels, fertilizers, chemicals, electricity, and livelihood in exchange for the NPR offer and the traveling climate change green bible seller?
Lol. The big green govt has nothing good to offer to a farmer.
Err, may be lol is a teenish acronym. But you made me smile.
Perhaps you can tell that to the hundreds of farmers in Iowa, South Dakota, Kansas and Texas who are making money from wind turbines located on their property.
If you go across the border into Alberta, the farmers in southern Alberta have to irrigate almost every year as a mater of normal practice.