Fun fact in case you don’t know:
Much of the Midwest USA (which is landlocked, with no major natural bodies of water except our rivers) is UNDERWATER and most of the food grown in the US won’t be grown this year. High water rescues are being performed in what is supposed to be prairie. Flooding shows no sign of stopping and is going to break the all time flooding record. Levees are topped and failing, retention pools are full, and on top of that, MAJOR tornadoes (over 750 so far, on 4 occasions reaching EF4 status) have been happening. Over 400 streets are closed in Missouri alone, and most of a major interstate (i29) is closed in Iowa, Missouri, and Nebraska?
Above: Nebraska, where 90% of corn and soy is grown in the US. Left is normal, right is this past march.
Most farmers in these areas don’t have flood insurance because they’re not in flood planes and normally would never need it. So they are at a major loss.
The US grows about 70% of the entire country’s staple crops, and half of Canada’s, too. The US is Canada’s main place of import because there is more viable planting space in the US than Canada. $1.4 billion of exports are sent to Australia every year as well, mostly pork, milk, and fruits that can’t grow in Asia (Australia’s main supplier).
There will not be corn, soy, dry beans, canned beans, beef, chicken, or wheat grown. Beef will go up at least 2$ a lb and corn and soy will be extremely pricey and hard to find because it will have to be imported.
Lots of farmers haven’t even been able to plant their fields and cannot plant at all, most commonly as a result of too much moisture in the soil—though driving through my part of Illinois, I can tell you that many fields are more puddle/lake than actual field.
Most of this area with lots of rain has already hit their “final planting date,” when crop insurance no longer guarantees the full payout as crops planted after that date stand a significantly higher risk of not making it to harvest. As a result, many farmers are looking at having to take prevented planting payments, which are generally 50-60% of their normal revenue. Additionally, taking these payments prevents those farmers from being able to replant their crop. While some haven’t paid for inputs (fuel, seed, fertilizer), many already have, and it will be extremely difficult to cover these losses with such a low payment.
It’s going to be a massive hit to small and medium-sized farms, which constitute over 90% of farms in the United States.
Livestock is also dying at an alarming rate - one person I know has recently lost 200 cattle because of flooding.
More levees have breeched in this and the flooding is worse than Katrina. More rain is still coming. Fields that should be planted right now are sitting under feet of standing water, which is also a breeding ground for mosquitoes and other disease-carrying insects.
Right now, we are leaning on a back supply of food, but this can only last for so long.
If you live somewhere that is affected by this, and you very well might, even if you don’t know it, STOCK UP ON FOOD. Corn, soy, wheat, beef, and dry beans are the biggest things that will be affected. Chicken might be good to stock up on too. Prices will skyrocket when back supply begins to run low. This is a very real thing. Nuts, potatoes, and pea-based proteins shouldn’t be affected.
Credit for help with this post goes to “sounds like a weirdly specific question but okay” on facebook.
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