The MESONET station in Goodwell in the Oklahoma Panhandle recorded a total accumulation of precipitation in 2022 of just 6.48 inches. That’s all the rain that fell there for the whole year.

How has the 2022 drought affected your forage production in the Southern Plains? That’s the question the USDA Southern Plains Climate Hub and the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) are asking agriculture producers in the region to help answer.

We got rain! I had over an inch and half in my gage last week! Some folks in Southern Oklahoma got more than that! Great news, at least in Oklahoma, right? Wrong.

Loans can be used to cover the cost of replacement equipment or livestock, the reorganization of a farming operation or the refinance of some debts. The declarations cover large sections of Iowa, Kansas and Oklahoma, as well as counties in other states like Maine, New Hampshire and New York.

The conditions in Oklahoma and Kansas especially continue to deteriorate. Wish I could say something positive. I guess we don’t have to worry about flooding at the moment.

With what seems like an ever-extending drought now settled in on the region, I think its important that we start sharing more of the stories of the farmer, ranchers and rural communities affected by this weather trend.

Researchers found that a 1% increase in no-tillage adoption within a county can increase agricultural land value by $7.86 per acre across 12 Midwestern states covered by the OpTIS database: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wisconsin. Using data specific to Iowa they concluded 1% adoption of no-till at the county level increases farmland values $14.75 (and possibly more) per acre inside Iowa.