Farm Agents: Tariff-slammed Farmers Now Fighting Climate Change Flood Hell

Panicked farmers across the Midwest face the growing likelihood that large areas of fields will remain unprocessed or crops will fail this season as the country remains underwater or for sodden for agricultural equipment and plants.

The crushing weather conditions come at the top of Donald Trump's trade war with China, which has already triggered a record of farm bankruptcies.

It has been the wettest 12 months ever in the United States, and researchers are linking it to the impact of climate change.

"The Frequency of These Disasters, I can't say we've experienced anything like this since I've been working in agriculture," said John Newton, chief economist at the American Farm Bureau Federation, to The Washington Post.

That's It slowest planting time of 39 years.

Soda fields are fallow, and grain and soy crops planted are stunted in the mud, hard-hit states include Ohio, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Michigan: The waters began to retreat in some areas this week, but there is more rain in the forecast. "" It's going to be a train weapon, "the Illinois farmer James McCune, who has been in land since 1[ads1]857, told Crains Chicago Business He could only plant 950 acres this year on the 6,000 acres he runs.

A Missouri farmer called his family farm "like lake property", adding: "The fields are washing away. "

Ohio's government Mike DeWine is seeking a federal disaster statement for more public funds. Only 50% of state grain crops and 32% of their soybean crop had been planted days ago due to relentless rains and floods. There is already an emergency in each county in Oklahoma.

Indiana corn farmer Kendall Culp and his 80-year-old father called weather conditions this year "outstanding." I've never had a return where I couldn't get my crop planted, "he told the post.

The Trump administration already uses a total of $ 27 billion in subsidies just to help farmers survive the president's trade war. But it will probably not touch the extra damage of flooding.

Trump has not recognized the flood duty on the group he refers to as his "patriot farmers", who are credited with helping him get into the White House. He also doesn't think that climate change exists. The climate has changed, he admits. "Will it change?" He recently asked in an Axios interview. "Probably, that's what I think." His political changes – including his intention to ease car emissions standards – will predict worsening climate change, researchers say.

A new Purdue university study has found that the farmer's feelings are the lowest it has been in three years. Farmers are becoming increasingly pessimistic about their future, referring to losses from both Trump's trade war and today's weather conditions, according to the study.

The Ministry of Agriculture of the United States Department of Agriculture estimated that farmers had planted only 67 percent of the area planned for maize by June 3. This time last year they were 96 percent. "That means that nearly 40 million hectares of corn have not been planted," Michale Nepveux, an economist at the American Farm Bureau Federation, told Pacific Standard. "It's astronomical."

By the end of May, only 29% of soybeans were planted, compared to 66% in comparable years, according to data released Tuesday by the Agricultural Department. In Indiana at the end of May, only 2% of maize crops and 11% of planned soybeans were planted.

It is not only the farmers, but their local communities who suffer.

"Everything comes from land and feeds our small towns, our lifts, fertilizer business, seed business, machinery, all that," said farmer Dan Koster of Illinois. "It's the ripple effect that will affect all the guys."