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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Friday, December 20, 2024
Farmers and ranchers who bought crop insurance across the Plains and West are finding that it’s going to make a big difference to their bottom lines due to the drought that plagued the region through the growing season.
Drought has spread into regions this fall essential to the Biden administration’s plans to boost wheat production through double cropping, but many farmers who follow the practice in their normal rotations haven’t strayed from their plans to sow winter wheat this fall.
While the Inflation Reduction Act increases funding for existing agricultural conservation projects, its investment in renewable energy has the potential to also help expand indoor agriculture.
Competition for irrigation water is heating up across the West and Plains states and the battles are expected to become more intense in coming years. With that in mind, Nebraska is taking a proactive approach to ensure access to water when it’s needed, even at the risk of starting a dispute with its neighbors in Colorado.
Drought in the American West, Southwest and Central Plains hit farmers and ranchers hard last year, buta new survey from the American Farm Bureau Federationshows the situation has worsened this year as more producers are abandoning scorched crops, destroying orchard trees and paying for livestock feed.
Texas farmers are facing a drought that will all but eliminate the hopes of many for a good cotton crop in 2022 as attention turns to topsoil conservation measures that producers hope will allow them to try again next year.
The Bureau of Reclamation has reached out to agriculture interests in the West as the agency considers how to spend the $4 billion earmarked in the recently enacted Inflation Reduction Act for bolstering water-saving efforts in the Colorado River Basin and other drought-stricken areas.
The Biden administration announced on Tuesday that Colorado River water shortages had passed a threshold that will require unprecedented water cuts in Arizona and Nevada, but a multi-state consensus on future cuts remains elusive.
Seven states in the Colorado River Basin have emerged from 3 months of negotiations with no agreement for how to conserve between 2 and 4 million acre-feet of water in 2023, leaving that decision in the hands of the Bureau of Reclamation.
The climate funding package that Senate Democrats expect to pass this weekend will include $4 billion in drought-related funding for the Bureau of Reclamation.
