“Hopefully, your newspaper was soaked when you picked it up today, because our region needs rain. 

Nervous farmers in the row crop portions of the Eighth Congressional District have been anxiously scanning the skies for dark clouds ever since their seeds went into the ground, in some cases for more than a month.

Once again, we are facing a rainfall shortage in parts of Southern Missouri.  In areas of the region, we are inches behind our average amounts of precipitation on the long-term average.  The effect of drought on the young plants of our soybean and corn crops can present a real challenge – stunting their growth and challenging their yields.  Our farmers are helpless in these conditions, with nothing more to do than pray for rain.

In addition, our need for rain can have a ripple effect throughout our economy, from the feed business to implement dealers to banks and small businesses.  Even with irrigation, costs may exceed what the farmer has budgeted for them and cuts must be made.  A crop can burn up in the fields, and farm families must cut back again.  Without rivulets of water trickling though our fields, there can be no trickle-down effect in our rural economy.

No disaster situation demonstrates the need for emergency agriculture disaster programs better than drought. Unlike a hailstorm or a late freeze, a drought brings a slow death to our Southern Missouri fields and pastures.  Oftentimes, disaster relief from the federal government is slow, insufficient, or poorly targeted.  Sometimes relief never arrives.  Part of the problem is that the emergency aid must be taken up each time a drought year strikes.  As Congress debates the 2007 Farm Bill, we must make the case for a permanent disaster relief program, upon which the agricultural community can rely to be there whenever the livelihoods of our farms and ranches
are threatened.

As we re-authorize this important legislation, it is important to remember these key points:

In 2005 alone, approximately 80 percent of U.S. counties were declared “disaster” or “contiguous disaster” counties due to devastating hurricanes, fires, floods, and drought.  Relief for many of those producers was not approved until May of 2007 and will not arrive until much later in the year.

Even emergency relief for the agricultural community is subject to bureaucratic restrictions and cuts in order to hit an arbitrary budget figure.  A permanent disaster relief program, on the other hand, would tell producers what conditions they must meet to be eligible for relief before the disaster occurs.

We must also be sure Farm Service Agency offices are open and available to serve producers during difficult times as well as between them.  We cannot continuously ask FSA employees to do more good with fewer resources, then to eventually produce a miracle to save a family farm or ranch.

The dry weather is a sobering reminder that farming and ranching are pretty tough businesses.  Work on the farms and ranches can start before sunrise and end long after sundown and, some times of year, run seven days a week.  Our producers are in the only business in which you buy retail, sell wholesale, and pay the cost of shipping both ways.  When most of us leave the house in the morning and examine the skies to see if we need an umbrella, the producer examines the same skies for signs that the crop will survive the summer.

So if our family picnics and fireworks get rained out this Fourth of July, I will be disappointed, but I won’t complain.”