The ripple effect of drought in Texas

Janet Gregg in the Daily Progress (Jacksonville, Texas): The impact of the current drought on the state’s agriculture industry has been devastating already and is likely to worsen if the drought continues through next year as some experts predict. “It does look like the drought of 2011 will be the costliest drought in Texas history,” said Mark Welch, Extension economist for grain marketing with the Texas Agrilife Extension Service. “It’s a three, four, five billion dollar impact right now, just in Texas. This is a big deal.”

The state’s five main field crops: wheat, corn, hay, sorghum and cotton have been devastated. The wheat yield was half that of a normal year. That means half the income for wheat farmers, and half the amount of wheat available for ranchers to feed their livestock.

There’s a global impact as well. Texas exports most of its wheat crop for world trade. “We’ve seen relatively high wheat prices in recent years, and those prices will go up with the shortage on a global scale if other wheat producing nations can’t make up the deficiencies of the U.S.,” Welch said.

...“Drought is the top issue among beef cattle producers in Texas right now,” said Dr. Jason Cleere, AgriLife Extension beef cattle specialist. Many ranchers are selling their herds because they can’t afford to feed them. Currently, the U.S. is down nearly one million head of cattle.

...Even if rebuilding of the nation’s cattle herds were to begin today, it would be several years before inventory would reach a significant number. “Even in best-case scenario, we will not see additional beef on the table until 2015,” said Brett Stuart, an economist with CattleFax. He added that global meat production will need to double by 2050 to meet growing demand....

A scorched cornfield in Castroville, Texas on June 19, 2011, shot by Billy Hathorn, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license