Northeast Indiana looks more like West Texas this summer than America\u2019s heartland. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, nearly 70 percent of the state, including a wide swath from around the Kentucky border in the south north through Fort Wayne and all the way to the Michigan border, is in an \u201cextreme or exceptional\u201d drought. Sadly, there is not a county in the state where some degree of drought does not exist.<\/p>\n
A total of 73 percent of the state\u2019s corn crop, the nation\u2019s most valuable commodity, is in poor or very poor condition. Some 53 percent of our soybean crop, the second-biggest revenue-generating commodity in the state, is in poor or very poor condition as well. Ranchers in the state are quickly running out of options to feed their livestock, as 89 percent of the state\u2019s pastures are in poor or very poor condition.<\/p>\n
While we\u2019ve been blessed with adequate rainfall for the past month, for the corn crop it\u2019s too little and too late. We\u2019re also still at a level of subsoil moisture that, if it doesn\u2019t improve, will potentially make it difficult to produce a crop in 2013.<\/p>\n
For farmers like me who have purchased crop insurance, it will be a hard year, maybe even a bad year, but it won\u2019t be the end of farming for us. Crop insurance, which covers crises like the one we find ourselves in, was designed by Congress as a way to encourage farmers to put some \u201cskin\u201d in the risk-management game while moving some of the risk of America\u2019s farm sector from the taxpayers to the private sector.<\/p>\n