Editorial: Iowa's Disasters - Truth About Trade and Technology

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Monday, 16 June 2008 03:38

The New York Times
Original Publish Date: June 14, 2008

The heaviest rains in Iowa this past week fell in the northern part of the state — a torrential downpour in many cases, following the third-wettest May on the books. That water has been draining out of fields — washing away soil and crops as it goes — and into the rivers, which in the eastern half of the state flow predominantly to the southeast. Des Moines, Iowa City and Cedar Rapids have all watched as floods have approached, but it has been impossible to turn them away. Cedar Rapids and Iowa City have been engulfed. Fifty-five of Iowa’s 99 counties have been declared a disaster.

Iowa has been experiencing disaster on several scales. There is the sudden horror of tornadoes — the worst of which killed four Boy Scouts Wednesday night near Blencoe, on the western edge of the state. There is the steady rising of the rivers, many of them cresting well above flood stage, causing floods that recall and in some cases exceed the ones that hit the state in 1993. And there is the long-term damage to all that cropland and the economy that depends on it.

Farmers already had trouble getting into their fields to plant, thanks to a cold, wet spring. The corn crop would have been smaller than expected even if June had begun normally. Instead, some parts of the state have gotten more than the average annual rainfall in a single storm or two. What’s washing away isn’t just soil. It’s also the nitrogen fertilizer that farmers add to the soil to make corn grow. That dark, nutrient-saturated flood will soon be making its way down the Mississippi where it will add to the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico.

Yields per acre will surely drop, as will the corn crop in Iowa and across much of the Midwest. Corn prices are already at historic highs and are expected to top $8 a bushel by harvest. A year ago, farmers, traders and economists were worrying about corn at $3.50 a bushel. These prices will severely strain the industries that depend on cheap, abundant corn, especially the ethanol industry and factory farms that rely on subsidized feed. Farmers and city-dwellers will be feeling the effects of this disastrous season for a long time to come.