In a recent article called, “After flooding, Midwest farmers fear repeat of '97” from the AP, the odds are against many farmers in the Fargo-Moorhead region of North Dakota and Northwest Minnesota. After a wet autumn that lead to a late harvest, Mother Nature hasn’t loosened her grip this spring. Floods have devastated many farms in the region.

The summer of 1997 was one of the worst on record for farmers of this same region. Farm income decreased that year by 85%. Spring brought blizzards and floods. Many cattle farms were hurt by the weather and planting operations were thrown off as well. This spring has produced some of the same troubles. This is a picture from the Fargo area showing farmland flooding, not a lake.


Source: AP

During last fall’s harvest a lot of combines got stuck in the wet fields and left deep ruts. Those ruts compacted soil a few feet down. That compacted soil, along with the saturated ground, isn’t letting water through very easily, creating perfect conditions for flooding. Now, if there wasn’t a lot of snow and rain early in the spring, farmers could deep till their fields to break up those compaction layers, but not this year. The rain and snow didn’t allow for deep tillage this spring and now this area ia at risk of standing water in fields.

So what is being done to help the situation?

Some farmers, like Bryan Hest of the Moorhead region, are surprisingly optimistic, "I'm quite confident there is still opportunity," he said. "If we can get in (the fields) relatively decently this spring, we can pull out a crop."

Experts say there is about five to eight weeks left of the flood. That would put planting at the end of May and close to the date that seeds must be in the ground to be eligible for crop insurance.

Livestock ranchers might have it worst. With the rough winter and spring, the calving season is hurting. Local ranchers predict that this year won’t be quite as bad as 1997 when it was so bad they needed help removing their dead animals.

So what does this mean for other farmland?

With some crop yields decreasing from this region, it shows how diversifying crops and farmland is important. With farmland depleting so fast, more and more farmers are forced to grow crops in tighter areas. This isn’t a good practice because one area could be hit with a catastrophe like flooding.

No more farmland is being made, and condensing cropland is becoming riskier with these changing times.

- Colvin