Farm

Millions Of Acres Of Crops In The Central U.S. Have Been Destroyed By A Series Of Historic Natural Disasters

While the mainstream media focuses on the upcoming election, COVID-19 and the endless protests going on in our major cities, another great tragedy is unfolding all across the middle of the country. A nightmarish drought, horrific flooding along the Mississippi River and a giant “derecho” that just hit the farm belt have combined to make this one of the toughest years for farmers ever. And this comes at a particularly bad time, because the stress that the COVID-19 pandemic has put on food distribution systems has already created periodic shortages of certain items around the nation. We definitely could have used an uneventful growing season this year, and unfortunately we didn’t get it.

On Monday, an absolutely massive “derecho” roared through the Midwest. According to USA Today, the storm had winds of up to 112 miles per hour…

The storm had winds of up to 112 mph near Cedar Rapids, Iowa – as powerful as an inland hurricane – as it tore from eastern Nebraska across Iowa and parts of Wisconsin, Indiana and Illinois, including Chicago and its suburbs.

Most hurricanes don’t have winds that high once they finally reach shore, and I have personally never experienced wind speeds of such magnitude.

Needless to say, this very unusual storm caused immense devastation. According to Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, approximately 10 million acres of crops were destroyed in Iowa alone…

Early estimates say the derecho flattened at least one-third of Iowa’s crops – about 10 million acres, according to Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds. In addition, tens of millions of bushels of grain that were stored at co-ops and on farms were damaged or destroyed as bins blew away.

And it rocked Marshalltown, Iowa, where an EF-3 tornado destroyed the town’s business district just two years ago. With winds of 99 mph, Monday’s storm damaged some businesses that had recently recovered, even damaging the scaffolding being used to repair the historic courthouse dome.

I can’t remember a storm ever causing this much damage in the middle of the summer.

If about 10 million acres were flattened just in Iowa, how many more acres did this storm destroy in Nebraska, Wisconsin, Indiana and Illinois?

Sadly, this one storm is going to completely financially ruin some farmers. For example, Iowa farmer Tim Bardole is facing losses that could potentially exceed one million dollars…

Corn that used to stand upright on Bardole’s farm is now laying on its side. Some stalks snapped off, others ripped out of the ground at the roots.

Bardole estimated he’ll be out $200 an acre, which is $500,000 total.

Worst-case scenario, that could go up to $500 per acre. That would equate to $1.25 million.

How would you feel if you lost a million dollars because of one storm?

Further south, many farmers along the southern Mississippi Delta have already had their growing seasons wiped out by historic flooding for the second year in a row…

The southern Mississippi Delta is home to some of the most fertile farmland in the United States.

But not a single crop of soybeans, cotton, corn, or rice has been planted at many farms in the region — one of the poorest in the country.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

The flooding of 2019 was a complete and utter nightmare, and this was the year when the recovery was supposed to begin. But instead, “hundreds of thousands of acres” are currently entirely buried by water…

For the second year in a row, widespread flooding has left hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland underwater, ruining entire harvests. And now, with their fields submerged, farmers are bracing for another year of no income.

Meanwhile, countless other farmers are having their growing seasons ruined by a crippling drought.

I know that many of you are reading this article and are thinking that what I am saying sounds contradictory.

After all, how can there be severe flooding and severe drought at the same time?

I know that this sounds very strange, but it is actually happening. We are witnessing severe flooding right along the Mississippi River, and at the same time historic drought conditions are creating massive problems across much of the western half of the nation.

In fact, we are being told that drought conditions in some areas have already become the worst “in almost a decade”…

Drought conditions throughout the country are reaching their worst levels in almost a decade.

This summer, drought has hit large portions of the United States, especially slamming key pasture and ranges for ranchers. But crops are also seeing downward trends in quality thanks to the hot, dry weather.

Things are particularly bad in the Southwest, and this is making life very difficult for many ranchers…

The worst-hit section of the country, with the highest levels of drought, are in cattle country: West Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Kansas. That’s led to really damaged, dry topsoil and grazing land, which could force ranchers to invest in other feeding options for livestock. Only 36 percent of the country’s pasture and range land is rated good or excellent; 30 percent is rated poor or very poor, reports FarmFutures.

If you look at the latest U.S. Drought Monitor map, you will see that the drought is the worst in the areas where the original “Dust Bowl” developed back in the 1930s. Those that follow my work regularly know that I have been warning about a return of “the Dust Bowl” for many years, and now it is starting to happen.

2020 seems to be a year when the bad news never ends. First we were hit by the worst public health crisis in 100 years, then the U.S. economy collapsed, then massive riots erupted in our major cities, and now farms are being absolutely devastated all across the United States.

All throughout 2019 I warned that a “perfect storm” was coming, and what we have experienced so far is just the leading edge of that storm.

So I would encourage you to use the relative tranquility of the month of August to get prepared for what is ahead, because the month of September is almost here, and the presidential election is right around the corner.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com. By purchasing the book you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe. I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article. In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help. During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

An “All-Out Blizzard” That Is “Unheard Of For October” Is About To Hit Farms In The Midwest With Up To 2 Feet Of Snow

Farmers in the middle of the country are about to get hit by what could potentially be the worst October blizzard in U.S. history. According to USA Today, “the massive size and intensity of this snowstorm is unheard of for October”. In other words, we have never seen anything like this in the month of October ever before. Such a storm would have been disastrous enough in a normal year, but this has definitely not been a normal year for Midwest farmers. As I detailed extensively in previous articles, endless rain and horrific flooding made planting season a complete and utter nightmare for many Midwest farmers this year. Millions of acres did not get planted at all, and planting was seriously delayed on tens of millions of other acres. As a result, corn, soybeans and other crops are simply not ready to be harvested in many parts of the Midwest, and now an unprecedented winter storm is barreling directly toward our heartland.

This is a very, very serious situation. Normally, most corn in the Dakotas and Minnesota is considered to be “mature” by now, but this year we are facing a completely different scenario.

According to the latest USDA Crop Progress Report, only 22 percent of the corn in North Dakota is considered to be “mature” at this point…

Many farmers continue to wait on the sidelines to get into the fields. With freezing temperatures, heavy snowfall, and high winds set to hit the northern Plains this week, the corn in North Dakota is only 22% mature vs. a 75% five-year average, according to Monday’s USDA Crop Progress Report.

Also, South Dakota corn is rated 36% mature vs. an 80% five-year average. Minnesota farmers have a corn crop that is just 39% mature vs. an 83% five-year average.

And now here comes an “all-out blizzard”.

In case you are wondering, I am not the one that put such an extreme label on this storm. In fact, Accuweather is specifically using that term to describe this historic storm…

An unusually far-reaching snowstorm for early October will stall, strengthen and evolve into an “all-out blizzard” over the Dakotas and then will send a blast of cold air across much of the Plains and Midwest.

Heavy snow has already fallen on the northern Rockies and was progressing southeastward along with a charge of cold air. Snow and slippery travel were also being reported in parts of Washington state, including around Spokane where new daily snowfall record for Oct. 8 was set. Spokane International Airport recorded 3.3 inches of snow Tuesday, shattering the previous record for the day, which was a trace set in 1981.

It is crazy that Spokane is already getting snow.

According to Yahoo News, that snowfall already makes this the “third-snowiest October” that the city has ever experienced…

Spokane, Washington, was one town that was hit particularly hard by the snow on Tuesday. A record-breaking 3.3 inches of snow fell, the first measurable snow in the month of October since 2001. It also made this month the third-snowiest October on record, following 3.9 inches in October of 1975 and 6.1 inches in October of 1957.

Ultimately, a few inches of snow is not that big of a deal.

But once this storm reaches the middle of the country, it is going to dump up to 2 feet of snow on some of our most important agricultural areas…

A general 6-12 inches is forecast over much of the Dakotas. However, a large swath of 12-24 inches is likely with an AccuWeather Local StormMax™ of 30 inches likely from north-central North Dakota to central and northeastern North Dakota.

Cities that could end up with 2 feet of snow include Bismarck, Jamestown and Devils Lake, North Dakota, as well as Mobridge, South Dakota, and Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Needless to say, that much snow at this time of the year is going to be absolutely devastating for many farmers.

And we are being told that this coming storm actually has “two parts”. After the first part strikes, the second part is going to come rolling through on Friday and Saturday…

The storm will have two parts, the first of which is targeting the northern and central Rockies and High Plains on Wednesday into Thursday. The second part will bring snow to the eastern and central portions of the Dakotas and western Minnesota by week’s end.

“Near-blizzard to full-fledged blizzard conditions are possible across portions of central North Dakota Friday afternoon into Saturday morning,” the weather service in Bismarck said. “Expect high impacts and dangerous to impossible travel conditions.”

I can’t even imagine how corn and soybean farmers are going to feel once their unharvested fields are buried under two feet of snow.

As I keep warning, weather patterns just continue to become more extreme, and many believe that what we have witnessed so far is just the beginning of our problems (#ad).

There is one more thing that I would like to mention before I wrap up this article.

Do you remember the “Perfect Storm” that we witnessed in the Atlantic Ocean back in 1991? Hollywood made a big movie about it, and that film ended up making more than 300 million dollars worldwide.

Well, according to Accuweather a very similar storm is now developing in roughly the same location…

Interestingly, around the same time in 1991, the “Perfect Storm” was in the making over the western Atlantic Ocean. There are some similarities to the pattern this week with a smaller storm taking shape and stalling just off the mid-Atlantic and New England coasts.

I found this to be particularly interesting, because I wrote an article about “the perfect storm” that is about to hit America just a few days ago. If you missed it, you can find my article entitled “The Book Is About To Close On The Late Great United States Of America” right here.

We live in truly unprecedented times, and things are about to start getting really crazy out there.

So get prepared for “the perfect storm” while you still can, because time is quickly running out.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles in written form on their own websites as long as this “About the Author” section is included. In order to comply with government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate. You can follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of this website.

Crops Devastated As More Ferocious Storms Pound The Midwest – “It’s Hard To Get Your Head Around Just How Bad It Is”

It has gotten to the point where maybe we should just expect violent storms to hammer the Midwest every single day of the week. Highly destructive storms ripped through the Midwest on Tuesday, it happened again on Wednesday, and the forecast calls for more powerful storms on Thursday. This growing season has been a complete and utter nightmare for U.S. farmers, and each day it just gets even worse. Millions of acres will not be planted at all this year, but an even bigger problem is that fact that crops are dramatically failing on tens of millions of acres that were actually planted in time. Every major storm does even more damage, and that is why what we have witnessed so far this week has been so alarming.

For example, on Tuesday the middle of the country was absolutely pummeled by “more than 120 damaging storms”…

More than 120 damaging storms were reported from Montana all the way to Florida on Tuesday, a barrage that included 70 mph winds from Texas to Illinois, golf ball-sized hail Nebraska and up to half a foot of rain in parts of southern Iowa.

Then on Wednesday a series of severe storms dumped enormous amounts of rain “from Washington state to Illinois”.

And of course we aren’t done yet. According to AccuWeather, Thursday will be another very rough day for the heartland…

More severe weather is likely on Thursday over parts of the North-Central states.

The storms may take a more west-to-east track across the northern Plains to the Great Lakes region during Thursday afternoon and night.

During this period, a complex of storms is likely to travel from the eastern part of South Dakota to across Lake Michigan and much of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. Storms are forecast to roll through Minneapolis in the morning and then Milwaukee later in the day or evening.

In recent weeks, some people that clearly don’t live in the middle of the country have left some really negative comments on my articles about the enormous toll that this disaster is taking on Midwest farmers. For whatever reason, some people want to try to minimize the nightmare that these farmers are living. But the truth is that it would be very difficult to overstate the scope of this crisis at this point.

Recently, Missouri farmer Kate Glastetter told one reporter that her fields “are washing away” and that they currently resemble “lakefront property”…

Kate Glastetter has worked on her family farm all her life. Alongside her father, the 25-year-old farmer grows row crops—wheat, bean, and corn—and runs a cow and calf operation in Scott County, Missouri. Normally, at this time in the season, farmers would be starting to plant soybeans, and corn should already be in the ground. Instead, Glastetter says, their fields are covered in water. “It’s like lakefront property,” she says. “The fields are washing away.”

It’s a common story across the Midwest and Great Plains, where the Missouri and Mississippi River basins are still recovering from a catastrophic deluge: Since March, record flooding in the central United States has caused historic crop delays. The Mississippi River received levels of rain and snow at 200 percent above normal this spring, causing corn and some soybean farmers to wait longer to plant their crops than ever recorded in Department of Agriculture data.

How would you feel if you had to watch your income for the year literally wash away right in front of your eyes?

This is happening in state after state, and it is truly a disaster unlike anything we have ever seen before. In fact, one agricultural expert told AgWeb that it is “hard to get your head around just how bad it is”…

“I never thought we’d see this widespread of a weather issue — all the way from South Dakota to Ohio,” Jerry Gulke, president of the Gulke Group, told Farm Journal’s AgWeb.

“It’s hard to get your head around just how bad it is.”

Meanwhile, U.S. farmers are also being absolutely devastated by our trade war with China. The following comes from Zero Hedge…

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the People’s Republic of China published new data Monday that shows agricultural imports from the US have fallen, as Chinese buyers shift supply chains out of the US to other countries because of the deepening trade war.

In the first five months of 2019, imports of agricultural products from the US crashed 55.3% YoY. Much of decline was due to a 70.6% YoY decline of soybeans in the same period.

Chinese importers went to Brazil, Argentina, and ASEN countries (Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Myanmar (Burma), Cambodia, and Laos). Data showed imports from the EU, Australia, and Canada also jumped in the first five months as Chinese buyers ditched American products.

Farmers are being financially destroyed all over the country, and yet there are some people out there that seem to think that it is appropriate to mock them and make light of their suffering.

I just don’t get it.

Look, the truth is that we are all going to be hurting as a result of this crisis. Food prices are going to go up, gas prices are going to go up as less corn is available for ethanol, and the massive income loss that U.S. farmers are suffering is going to have ripple effects throughout the entire U.S. economy. Those that are mocking others should be busy preparing for harder times instead.

And of course this all comes at a time when we are experiencing the worst economic downturn since the last recession.

For many months, I warned that a “perfect storm” was coming, and now we can see evidence of it all around us.

For U.S. farmers, it is hard to imagine that things could get even worse than they are right now, and so let us hope that better weather is right around the corner.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

Shocking Before And After Photos Reveal The Truth About The Widespread Crop Failures The U.S. Is Facing In 2019

Torrential rains have been hammering the heartland of America for months, and at this point vast stretches of farmland in the middle of the country are nothing but mud. As a result of the endless rain and unprecedented flooding that we have witnessed, millions of acres of farmland will have nothing planted on them at all in 2019, and that is a major national crisis. But most farmers were able to get seeds planted in the deplorable conditions, and now they are desperately hoping that something will actually grow. Unfortunately, on farm after farm what is coming out of the ground looks absolutely terrible. Even if we get ideal weather conditions for the rest of the summer, there is no way that many of these fields will be ready before the first hard frost arrives. As you will see below, the truth is that we are potentially facing the most widespread crop failures in all of U.S. history.

This is the biggest news story in America so far this year, and the mainstream media is finally starting to understand the gravity of what we are facing. Just consider the following quote from a recent Quartz article…

The stories across the Midwest are wrenching. Scrolling through the #NoPlant19 hashtag turns up dozens of posts about farmers staring out at soggy fields or farm equipment foundering in deep mud. It’s likely many will see their harvests devastated this year, and global grain prices could spike.

But of course a picture is worth a thousand words, and so let me share a before and after photo that a farming couple in Indiana named Kyle and Tori Kline recently shared on Facebook…

According to Tori, the corn was almost above Kyle’s head at this time last year, but today it is barely out of the ground…

“These two pictures speaks volumes to the crisis American Farmers are facing this spring. Kyle is about 6’3” and the corn was nearly above his head. Most corn around our area is lucky to be out of the ground, let alone knee high. It’s just some food for thought for those who think farmers are “rich” or “greedy” or what have you. It’s the reason food and gas prices will be getting higher as the summer goes on. I pray for those who didn’t or still haven’t gotten their crops in – for their safety and mental health. This year will be one to remember.”

Do you think that corn is going to be ready when harvest time rolls around?

And of course the Klines are far from alone. All over the nation, farmers are facing either dramatically reduced yields or no harvest at all.

Let me share four more extremely disturbing before and after photos that were recently posted to Facebook by TD Hale…

We have never seen anything like this before.

Now that you have seen these pictures, are you starting to understand why so many of us have been warning that U.S. agricultural production is going to be way, way down this year?

Corn is not supposed to grow in mud, but due to the horrific weather conditions many farmers in the middle of the country had absolutely no choice in the matter. For example, corn farmer Scott Labig confessed that he was “ashamed” of what the nightmarish weather conditions forced him to do…

Labig was doing something he had never done in his career. Something his father and his grandfather never did either in their time working this same land for the last century.

“I am ashamed of how I am planting corn today,” Labig told Campbell on the phone. “This is terrible.”

He was putting seeds into mud. How could things actually grow in this mess?

If you do not live in the middle of the country, you may have a difficult time grasping the true scope of what we are potentially facing.

If farmers do not grow our food, we do not eat. This is not a drill, and widespread crop failures are going to have dramatic implications for all of us in the months ahead. Food prices are going much higher, and I urge you to get prepared while you still can.

According to John Newton, the chief economist at the American Farm Bureau Federation, we have never faced “anything like this since I’ve been working in agriculture”. We are truly in unprecedented territory already, and it won’t take very much at all to turn 2019 into a complete and utter national catastrophe.

If the weather is absolutely perfect for the next few months, 2019 will still be a horrible, horrible year for farmers in the middle of the country.

But if the rain doesn’t stop, or if there is too much heat, or if a very early hard frost happens, we could be facing a national nightmare that is beyond what most of us would even dare to imagine.

And guess what? Over the weekend the middle of the country was pounded by even more severe storms…

Hundreds of people were without power in Missouri and Kansas on Sunday as storms ripped through the area, prompting officials to warn drivers to remain off the roads as flash flood warnings were in effect.

Until 8:45 a.m. central time, a flash flood warning was in effect in Missouri’s Trenton, Bethany and Gallatin cities, according to the National Weather Service, while such warnings were in effect until 8:30 a.m. central time in Saint Joseph, Atchison and Savannah.

Just when you think that this crisis cannot possibly get any worse, it does.

Please share this article with your family, friends and those that you care about. People need to understand what is going on out there.

We are literally watching a massive national crisis unfold right in front of our eyes, and I will do my best to continue to keep you updated.

Torrential Rain Of Biblical Proportions Is Causing Immense Devastation For Midwest Farmers

The wettest 12 months in all of U.S. history was followed by the second wettest May on record, and for some parts of the Midwest the month of June will be even worse. Some portions of Ohio and Indiana have gotten 10 more inches of rain since Friday, and more rain is literally falling on the Midwest as I write this article. When I describe what we have witnessed as “torrential rain of Biblical proportions”, I am not exaggerating even a little bit. Even before we got to the month of June, farmers in the middle of the country were already dealing with a disaster unlike anything that they had ever experienced before. And just when everyone thought that it couldn’t possibly get any worse, it did. Since Friday, the rainfall totals in the Ohio Valley have been staggering…

As much as 10 inches of rain has fallen in the Ohio Valley since Friday, causing flooding, necessitating water rescues and creating a mudslide near Lexington, Kentucky.

Parts of southern Indiana have seen 10 inches of rain, while up to half a foot fell in parts of Ohio. Other parts of Kentucky have reported 5 inches.

More rain is coming for the rest of the week, and that is exceptionally bad news for Midwest farmers.

At this point, millions of acres that farmers had intended to plant with corn will go completely unused. And according to a Washington Post article that was republished by MSN, corn futures are surging because traders are anticipating “an impending shortage” of corn…

Ohio trailed behind, with 68 percent of its corn planted, South Dakota had 78 percent, and Michigan and Indiana each had 84 percent of their hoped-for acres planted. Last week, the USDA lowered the projected total yield to 13.68 billion bushels (last year’s corn yield was 14.3 billion bushels). And as of Monday, in anticipation of an impending shortage, corn futures continued to trade at their highest level since June 2014.

I know that the USDA is projecting that somehow we will get to 13.68 billion bushels of corn, but a lot of experts are convinced that the USDA’s reduced projection is still wildly optimistic.

In some parts of the heartland, it literally looks like a hurricane just came through. When Ohio Department of Agriculture Director Dorothy Pelanda recently toured farms in her state, she saw fields that were “filled with water and weeds instead of crops”…

“I visited with several farmers this week and saw firsthand the impact of this devastating rainfall. Fields are visibly filled with water and weeds instead of crops,” states Ohio Department of Agriculture Director Dorothy Pelanda in the press release.

And for Ohio farmer Charles Kettering, hundreds of acres that he recently planted with corn and soybeans can’t be seen at all because they are currently underwater…

As much as a third of the 800 acres of corn and soybeans that Kettering planted a few weeks ago is currently underwater. The chances of that part of his crop surviving are next to nothing. As little as a full day underwater is enough to kill off whatever he planted. The deluge of heavy rain in late May and early June flooded much of the area’s fertile farmland, including Kettering’s acreage, which sits in the bottom of a valley.

As a result of the flooding here in June, the Ketterings will lose approximately $100,000.

Could you imagine how you would feel if you were suddenly hit with a financial loss of that magnitude?

Other farmers will be hit with huge losses at the end of the season when yields are way down. Thanks to the absolutely horrific weather, it is being projected that yields could be down by more than 50 percent for some Ohio farmers…

For those planting corn in June, yield losses are likely—even if the grower has switched to a shorter-season variety, said Peter Thomison, a corn field specialist with CFAES. The losses hinge on growing conditions after planting, but they could be more than 50% for some farmers, he said.

In the end, there is no way that we are going to come anywhere close to the 14.3 billion bushels of corn that was harvested in the U.S. last year, and that is going to have ripple effects that are going to last for a very long time.

For many Midwest farmers, this will be their last year in operation. Farm bankruptcies had already risen to the highest level since the last recession even before all of this rain, and this unprecedented disaster will be the final nail in the coffin for a lot of farms that have been teetering on the brink.

According to one recent survey, it is expected that the number of farm loan defaults over the next year will be double what we saw in 2017…

Midwestern bankers are tightening the purse strings on farm credit lines amid some of the toughest financial times for farmers in decades.

A survey of bank CEOs by Creighton University’s Heider College of Business found they expect the percentage of farm loan defaults over the next 12 months in a number of Midwestern states, including Illinois, to be double the default rates for 2017.

I keep warning that our planet is becoming increasingly unstable and that global weather patterns are changing dramatically. Midwest farmers are desperately hoping for some drier weather, but instead a lot more rain is coming…

Rain is in the forecast every day this week until Friday, and then we have a break over the weekend with more rain coming in Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday of next week.

The true scope of this crisis will not be fully known until harvest time rolls around, but right now the outlook for U.S. agricultural production in 2019 is exceedingly grim.

Perhaps things will soon dry out and we will have picture perfect weather for the rest of the growing season. If that happens, it will definitely help matters greatly.

But there is also the possibility that Midwest farmers could be hammered by extreme rain, extreme heat and/or an early frost.

Sadly, at this point it certainly wouldn’t take very much to turn an exceedingly bad growing season into a catastrophic one.

U.S. Farms Are Facing Their Worst Crisis In A Generation – And Now Here Comes Another Monster Storm

The combination of the wettest planting season in U.S. history, a catastrophic trade war with China and economic conditions that are brutal for small farms has produced a “perfect storm” for U.S. farmers. Farm bankruptcies have already risen to the highest level in 7 years, but many expect that they will soon surge to all-time record highs. Due to the incredibly wet weather, millions upon millions of acres of prime U.S. farmland will not be planted with crops at all this year. And millions of acres that do get planted will yield a lot less than usual because of the wretched conditions. Meanwhile, the U.S. will export far less corn and soybeans than usual this year due to our trade conflicts with China and Mexico. With much less international demand, U.S. farmers are going to have an increasingly difficult time trying to make a profit on anything they are able to grow. In the end, thousands of farmers will not be able to recover from this crisis and will be forced out of the industry for good.

According to USA Today, “a near biblical parade of misfortune” has created “the worst farm crisis since the 1980s”…

American farmers already plagued by a near biblical parade of misfortune that includes years of low prices and a trade war with China are now grappling with record Midwest rain that will likely prevent a large portion of this year’s crop from even getting planted.

The troubles have created the worst farm crisis since the 1980s, when oversupplies and a U.S. grain embargo against the Soviet Union forced thousands of farmers into bankruptcy, experts say.

So we can definitely say that this is the worst farm crisis in a generation, but the truth is that this crisis is far from over.

By the time it is over, we may look back and say that this was the worst farm crisis that the U.S. has ever seen.

The biggest problem for farmers so far in 2019 has been endless rain and flooding. Farmers kept waiting for a break in the weather that never came, and at this point the number of acres that have not been planted with crops is “unprecedented”…

Rain and flooding that began in March have kept farmers from planting a major portion of their crops during the normal mid-April to mid-May season in states like Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio and Michigan. As of Sunday, 39% of soybean acres have been planted in the 18 largest producing states, compared with an average 79% over the past five years, Agriculture Department figures show. Sixty-seven percent of corn acres are in the ground, vs. an average 96%. Such delays are unprecedented, Newton says.

What this means is that the amount of food that America’s farmers will produce this year is going to be way, way below normal. For much more on this, please see my previous article entitled “Due To Cataclysmic Flooding, Millions Upon Millions Of Acres Of U.S. Farmland Will Not Be Planted With Crops This Year”.

And to make matters worse, another monster storm is going to move through the middle of the country this week.

In fact, we are being told that some areas could see “a foot or more of rain”…

However, there is the potential for some areas of the Interstate 10 and 20 corridors to receive a foot or more of rain from the multiple-day event that may last through the weekend.

Rainfall of this magnitude will trigger street and poor drainage area flooding, initially. Motorists should be prepared for road closures, substantial delays and the need to alter their routes. To drive through flooded roadways is extremely dangerous.

For some farms, this will be the final nail in the coffin.

For others, their coffins were nailed shut a long time ago.

And things had already gotten really tough for U.S. farmers leading into 2019. Net farm income fell by almost half between 2013 and 2018, and so U.S. farmers desperately needed a bounce back year in a major way.

Instead, they are experiencing a year from hell.

Of course it isn’t just the weather. African Swine Fever and our trade conflicts with China and Mexico are making things extremely difficult as well…

There’s more. An African swine fever virus could suppress the production of Chinese pigs – which feed on soybeans – for years. And Trump last week threatened tariffs on all Mexican imports to prod the country into curtailing illegal immigration from Central America. Mexico vowed retaliation that could mean duties on U.S. exports such as corn, dairy and beef.

According to one report, China now plans to put purchases of U.S. soybeans “on pause”, and they are apparently turning to Brazil to fill their soybean needs.

If the trade war lasts long enough, this shift in the marketplace may become permanent and U.S. soybean exports to China may never be the same again.

So what are U.S. soybean farmers supposed to do? Without demand from China, thousands of soybean farmers face financial ruin. Many of them will be praying for a trade agreement, but at this point it doesn’t appear that one will happen for the foreseeable future.

I know that a lot of people living on both coasts still do not get it, but this crisis is absolutely devastating communities all across the heartland of America.

And that should greatly concern all of us, because if they do not produce food, we do not eat.

This is a major national crisis, and the mainstream media has not paid nearly enough attention to it.

Shame on them, and this is yet another example that shows why confidence in the mainstream media has never been lower in our history.

A Nightmare Spring And A Potential Food Crisis: U.S. Farmers UNABLE To Plant Crops Face Tough Decisions

(Mac Slavo) So far, 2019 has been a horrific year for farmers in the United States. Major flooding, an unnecessary trade war, and skyrocketing bankruptcies have left many farmers with a tough decision. One that will impact all of us.

According to Farm and Dairy, rain and flooding have limited any field work, and as of May 26, 2019, only 58% of the nation’s corn crop had been planted, and only 29% of U.S. soybeans were in the ground. In Ohio, only 22% of the corn had been planted, compared to a five-year average of 78% by this time, and only 11% of soybeans were planted, compared to a five-year average of 55%. Few farmers have been able to make hay or chop any forage crops. Fields that were planted in a rare weather window now need to be replanted, which is a huge financial burden for already cash strapped farmers.

Bankruptcies and suicides are rising at alarming rates among farmers. Part of the blame goes to the trade war, however, most farmers just don’t have any money and can’t continue. Bankruptcy is their only option. And when farmers grow less food, we all pay more under the basic economic law of supply and demand.

Patty Edelburg, the vice president of the Washington-based NFU group, which says it represents some 200,000 U.S. farms, appeared on Fox News in May and detailed what she stated was the dire state of American farming. Amid falling income and commodity prices, farmers have been forced to make hard choices. Those choices are resulting in a surging number of bankruptcies, increased financial stress, and suicide in the agricultural community.

“It has been insane,” Edelburg told America’s Newsroom anchors Sandra Smith and Jon Scott. “We’ve had a lot of farmers—a lot more bankruptcies going on, a lot more farmer suicides. These things are highlighting many of the news stories in our local news.” But the flooding is also taking its toll. Farmers are being hit from all sides, and that is not a good thing considering they grow the food most of us eat.

“Farmers are in the midst of six consecutive years of falling commodity prices and depressed farm income,” Perdue told Newsweek in May. “In that time we’ve definitely heard increased concern from our membership, and other organizations have as well, related to folks in their community not doing well in terms of their mental health.”

We suggest that you begin preparations for a potential food shortage. It never hurts to have extra food on hand or to learn to grow your own. An excellent resource is The Prepper’s Blueprint by Tess Pennington. The book The Prepper’s Cookbook is also a great resource for those who may need to learn to cook foods on hand in the event of a food crisis. The book contains 300 Recipes that will help you turn your emergency food into nutritious, delicious, life-saving meals.

Due To Cataclysmic Flooding, Millions Upon Millions Of Acres Of U.S. Farmland Will Not Be Planted With Crops This Year

It looks like 2019 could be the worst year for U.S. agriculture in modern American history by a very wide margin. As you will see below, millions upon millions of acres of U.S. farmland will go unused this year due to cataclysmic flooding. And many of the farmers that did manage to plant crops are reporting extremely disappointing results. The 12 month period that concluded at the end of April was the wettest 12 month period in U.S. history, and more storms just kept on coming throughout the month of May. And now forecasters are warning of another series of storms this week, and following that it looks like a tropical storm will pummel the region. As Bloomberg has pointed out, we have truly never seen a year like this ever before…

There has never been a spring planting season like this one. Rivers topped their banks. Levees were breached. Fields filled with water and mud. And it kept raining.

Many farmers just kept waiting for the flooding and the rain to end so that they could plant their crops, but that didn’t happen.

At this point it is too late for many farmers to plant crops at all, and it is now being projected that 6 million acres of farmland that is usually used for corn will go completely unsown this year…

There has never been weather like this, either. The 12 months that ended with April were the wettest ever for the contiguous U.S. That spurred other firsts: Corn plantings are further behind schedule for this time of year than they have been in records dating to 1980 and analysts are predicting an unheard-of 6 million acres intended for the grain may simply go unsown this year.

And we could actually see even more soybean acres go unplanted, because the latest crop progress report shows that soybean planting is even further behind…

The Crop Progress indicated just 67% of corn was planted in 18 key corn-producing states. The 2014-18 average for corn planted by June 2nd is 96%, so planting is off 30.2% in comparison.

Corn planting has been at an all-time low percentage for the last three reports and remains behind schedule in 17 of the 18 states monitored.

Soybean planting is behind in 16 of the 18 key soybean-producing states, according to the report. So far, just 39% of soybean planting has taken place, compared to the five-year average of 79% by June 2nd, meaning soybean planting is off 50.6%.

In the end, we could easily see more than 10 million acres of U.S. farmland go completely unused this year.

And please don’t assume that the acres that have been planted are going to be okay. In Nebraska, farmer Ed Brummels said that conditions are so bad that it is “like we are trying to plant on top of a lake!”…

It’s like we are trying to plant on top of a lake! Planting will be over soon as farmers continue to be frustrated with these very saturated conditions.

When you plant fields that are absolutely saturated with water, the results can be extremely disappointing, and that is what we are hearing all over the nation.

Here is just one example…

In Keota, Iowa, Lindsay Greiner sowed his 700 acres of corn toward the end of April — and then wasn’t able to get into his soaked fields for five weeks. He’s expecting much lower yields this year than last.

The crop right now is yellow. “It should be green,” he said. “It looks so bad.”

Farmers in the middle of the country desperately need things to dry out for an extended period of time.

But that is not going to happen any time soon.

In fact, meteorologists are telling us that more storms are going to hammer the middle of the country over the next few days…

The situation does not look to improve for farmers in the U.S. Corn Belt. AccuWeather is predicting the pattern of rounds of showers and thunderstorms to continue, with storms over part of the flood-stricken areas into midweek. Also, the southern half of the Corn Belt is in the path of downpours expected later this week.

“If you’re along the Ohio River and you don’t have your corn planted by Wednesday, you may not plant anything additional because you may get three inches of rain between Thursday and Saturday,” said AccuWeather senior meteorologist Jason Nicholls.

Sadly, some areas could see “up to 5 inches of rain”, and needless to say that could be absolutely devastating for many farmers.

And then after that, a weather system that could soon be named “Tropical Storm Barry” is likely to move into the region…

To make matters worse, rain from a developing tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico could bring additional rainfall to the region: “Tropical moisture from the western Gulf of Mexico may begin impacting parts of south Texas on Tuesday,” the National Weather Service said.

The weather system, which would be named Tropical Storm Barry if its winds reach 39 mph, is now sitting in the Gulf just east of Mexico.

2019 is turning out to be a “perfect storm” for U.S. farmers, and many of them will never recover from this.

Meanwhile, flooding continues to intensify along the major rivers in the middle of the country. According to Missouri Governor Mike Parson, almost 400 roads have now been closed in his state…

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson was touring flooded areas Monday in the northeast part of the state, where there have been around a dozen water rescues. Statewide, nearly 400 roads are closed, including part of U.S. 136.

Locks and dams upstream of St. Louis are shut down as the Mississippi River crests at the second-highest level on record in some communities. Midwestern rivers have flooded periodically since March, causing billions of dollars of damage to farmland, homes and businesses from Oklahoma and Arkansas and up to Michigan.

This flooding has been going on for months, and there is no end in sight.

In recent days, multiple levees in the state of Missouri have been breached, and a number of small towns are now totally under water…

The small town of Levasy in northwest Missouri’s Jackson County was under water Saturday after a levee breach along the Missouri River. Officials there were conducting water rescues by boat, according to the Associated Press, but no injuries were reported.

In Howard County in central Missouri, the river topped a levee prompting evacuations in Franklin, New Franklin and a stretch along Highway 5 from the Boonville Bridge to New Franklin, AP reported. The zone essentially covers all of the Missouri River bottom from Petersburg to Rocheport.

In West Alton and Alton, where the Missouri and Mississippi rivers meet, floodwaters are expected to rise another 3 feet by Wednesday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Some buildings in Alton are already surrounded by water, and the flood plain in West Alton is covered.

This is a nightmare that never seems to end, but many Americans living on both coasts don’t seem to be taking this disaster very seriously.

But they should be taking it seriously because if farmers don’t grow our food, we don’t eat.

The food that we are eating right now is from past production. The crops that are being grown now represent food that we will be eating in the future, and right now it looks like a whole lot less food will be produced than we expected.

That means that food prices will start going up, and they will probably keep going up for the foreseeable future.

We are moving into extremely uncertain times, but most Americans don’t seem to understand this yet.

For a very long time we have been able to take stability for granted, but now everything is starting to change. Those that are wise will be able to adapt to the changing conditions, but unfortunately it appears that most Americans believe that there is simply nothing to be concerned about.

While U.S. Farms Are Dealing With Natural Disasters, Trump Slapped Tariffs On The Countries We Import The Rest Of Our Food From

(By Daisy Luther) There’s little doubt that the US is headed into a food crisis. Here’s the bottom line. While American farmers are dealing with one natural disaster after another, President Trump has placed tariffs on the two countries from which we import the rest of our food.

A perfect storm, am I right?

Our farms are in real trouble.

Flooding in the midwest has been going on for months (and in some areas, waters are peaking.) Farmers haven’t been able to plant due to the sodden ground. Levees are failing all over the place. Hundreds of tornadoes have swept other farming areas in just the past month. California is unseasonably wet and cold, and they’re also dealing with a labor shortage, as migrant workers aren’t being allowed in as usual.

None of this sounds good for homegrown food in America and could well lead to a famine. And if it’s not a famine, we’re guaranteed to pay higher prices at the grocery store due to these catastrophes, as farmers struggle to recover.

But like a Ginsu knife commercial, there’s more.

We import a LOT of our food.

According to an article on Quartz, a vast amount of our food comes from other places. We’ll discuss two in particular.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S. imports billions of dollars worth of seafood from China each year. Farm-raised seafood such as tilapia, shrimp, salmon and catfish is shipped directly from China…

Imports of fresh fruits and nuts steadily increase each year, with Costa Rica and Mexico being the top suppliers to the U.S. This is due in part to their proximity to the U.S. and ability to import fruits closer to their picking time… Chinese pine nuts are a few. Fresh fruit arrives daily into the U.S. from Canada, Mexico, Chile and Peru. The list of fruits that are frequently imported from these countries include produce like bananas, pineapples, avocados, apples, honeydew melons, blueberries, cantaloupe, mangoes, nectarines and lemons…

Mexico dominates the supply of imported vegetables, supplying peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, corn, pinto beans, broccoli, cabbage, onions, lettuce, celery, squash and spinach, to name a few. (source)

And don’t forget Mexican avocados and berries or that Big Agri sends American meat to be processed in China who then sends it back.

(QUICK UPDATE: I think some folks are missing the point. I’m not recommending you eat tilapia etc. from China. I’m saying that our grocery stores are filled with imported food from China and when those prices go up, a lot of people will be in real trouble. The fact that the food is crappy quality has nothing to do with the point of the article – which is food shortages and rising prices. ~ DL)

So that sounds good – at least all our food isn’t grown here, leaving us to starve next year. Right? Not so fast.

Now there are tariffs on the two places from which we import the most food.

If the government had a way to make all these natural disasters occur almost simultaneously to keep ups from growing food here, I’d think the scheme was positively Machiavellian. But, no, we are just dealing with really horrible natural disasters topped off by some poorly timed political machinations.

Because President Trump has opted to place tariffs on the two places from which we import the most food.

At the same time that we’re having a lot of trouble growing our own food.

Now, regardless of what you think of tariffs, the reasons behind the tariffs, or illegal immigrants, you need to understand that the cart of groceries you buy now versus the cart of groceries you buy next year is going to be vastly different in price. Even though it sounds like I’m being political and bashing Trump (or not bashing him enough, depending on your views) all I’m trying to point out is the end result of all this. We need to think about how this affects us, the normies who have to budget for groceries.

We’re looking at both food shortages and higher priced food due to tariffs. Both of ’em at the same time.

If that isn’t a perfect economic storm for lower-income-earning Americans, I don’t know what is.

What can we do?

I strongly suggest you prep like there’s no tomorrow. Nearly half of all Americans are already in a position where it’s tough to pay rent and buy food. And we ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Buy whatever you can get your sweaty little hands on and store it away carefully. (I’ve got a brand-spankin’ new book coming out on this topic next week – you can pre-order it here. It’s an updated version of The Pantry Primer and it’s got additional content and pictures and everything.)

You need to purchase as inexpensively as possible food that will last a long time, like rice, dried beans, wheat berries, canned goods, peanut butter, and freeze-dried foods. You need to garden if you can and preserve the excess through canning and dehydration. Here’s how to make meals with all this stuff if you generally only cook with fresh ingredients.

What do you think will happen?

Maybe things will dry out and our crops will be bountiful. Maybe the tariffs won’t add too much to the price of our groceries.

But I really don’t think that’s what we’re going to see happening. What about you? What do you think about all the tariffs and the weather events and their potential effect on our food supply? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

About the Author: Daisy Luther is a coffee-swigging, gun-toting blogger who writes about current events, preparedness, frugality, voluntaryism, and the pursuit of liberty on her website, The Organic Prepper. She is widely republished across alternative media and she curates all the most important news links on her aggregate site, PreppersDailyNews.com. Daisy is the best-selling author of 4 books and runs a small digital publishing company. She lives in the mountains of Virginia with her family. You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter .

This Is Not “Normal”: There Have Been More Than 500 Tornadoes In The U.S. During The Last 30 Days

The mainstream media has been using the term “uncharted territory” to describe the unusual tornado outbreaks that have been happening in the middle of the country, but I don’t think that truly captures the historic nature of what we are witnessing. Over the last 30 days, there have been more than 500 tornadoes in the United States. That is not normal. In fact, Tuesday was the 12th day in a row when at least eight tornadoes were spawned, and that is a new all-time record. Community after community in the Midwest now looks like a “war zone”, and billions upon billions of dollars of damage has already been done. But this crisis is far from over, because forecasters are telling us that more powerful storms will roar through the middle of the country on Wednesday.

Since 1998, there has been an average of 279 tornadoes during the month of May. So the fact that we have had more than 500 over the last 30 days means that we are running way, way above normal…

In the last week alone, the authorities have linked tornadoes to at least seven deaths and scores of injuries. Federal government weather forecasters logged preliminary reports of more than 500 tornadoes in a 30-day period — a rare figure, if the reports are ultimately verified — after the start of the year proved mercifully quiet.

The barrage continued Tuesday night, as towns and cities across the Midwest took shelter from powerful storms. Tornadoes carved a line of devastation from eastern Kansas through Missouri, ripping trees and power lines in Lawrence, Kan., southwest of Kansas City, and pulverizing houses in nearby Linwood.

According to the National Weather Service, there were more than 50 tornadoes over Memorial Day weekend alone, and at this point there have been at least 8 tornadoes in the U.S. for 12 consecutive days…

Tuesday was the 12th consecutive day with at least eight tornado reports, breaking the record, according to Dr. Marsh. The storms have drawn their fuel from two sources: a high-pressure area that pulled the Gulf of Mexico’s warm, moist air into the central United States, where it combined with the effects of a trough trapped over the Rockies, which included strong winds.

The devastation that has been left behind by these storms has been immense. When Dayton assistant fire chief Nicholas Hosford appeared on ABC’s “Good Morning America”, he told viewers that in his city there are “homes flattened, entire apartment complexes destroyed, businesses throughout our community where walls have collapsed”.

Countless numbers of Americans have had their lives completely turned upside down, and of course the Midwest has already been reeling from unprecedented flooding in recent months.

So far this year, much of the focus has been on the historic flooding along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, but now severe flooding along the Arkansas River is threatening to break all-time records…

Heavy rainfall over the past few weeks is threatening all-time May records and swelling rivers to record levels in parts of Arkansas and Oklahoma.

The National Weather Service in Little Rock, Arkansas, didn’t mince words Sunday, expecting historic, record flooding along the Arkansas River from Toad Suck Reservoir northwest of Little Rock to the Oklahoma border that could have impacts lasting well into the summer.

In fact, USA Today is plainly stating that both states are “bracing for their worst-ever flooding”…

Oklahoma and Arkansas were bracing for their worst-ever flooding as a new wave of storms forecast to roll through the region threatened to further bloat the Arkansas River that already has reached record crests in some areas.

Forecasters reported tornadoes, high winds, hail and heavy rain across the region on Monday, triggering evacuations and high-water rescues. The storms are the latest to rip through the Midwest over the past two weeks, leaving at least nine dead and a trail of damage from high winds and flooding.

Of course let us not forget what is happening along the Mississippi River either. The flooding has been called “the worst in over 90 years”, and in some parts of the river new records are already being set…

For example, In Vicksburg, Mississippi, the river went above flood stage on Feb. 17, and has remained in flood ever since. The weather service said this is the longest continuous stretch above flood stage since 1927.

In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the Mississippi first rose above flood stage in early January, and has been above that level ever since, the National Weather Service said. If this record-long stretch extends well into June, it would break the record from 1927, according to the Weather Channel.

And farther north, the Mississippi River at the Quad Cities of Iowa and Illinois saw its longest stretch above major flood stage ever recorded, even surpassing that of 1927.

None of this is “normal”, and prior to the month of May we had already witnessed the wettest 12 months in all of U.S. history.

All of this wet weather has been absolutely disastrous for Midwest farmers, and so far in 2019 agricultural production is way, way below expectations. In the months ahead, we should all be prepared for much higher prices at the grocery store.

Unfortunately, more wet weather is on the way. According to the Weather Channel, another series of very powerful storms will rip through the middle of the country on Wednesday…

Strong to severe thunderstorms are expected through Tuesday night from Iowa to Oklahoma, which may produce areas of locally heavy rain and flash flooding. Some clusters of storms may persist into Wednesday morning in the Ozarks.

Then, another rash of thunderstorms with heavy rain is expected Wednesday and Wednesday night from North Texas into Oklahoma, Arkansas and southern Missouri that could only trigger more flash flooding and aggravate ongoing river flooding.

Weather patterns are going absolutely crazy, and we have never seen a year quite like this in modern American history.

So what is going to happen if weather patterns get even crazier and natural disasters just continue to become even more frequent and even more powerful?

You may want to start thinking about that, because that is exactly what many people believe is going to happen.

American Soil Is Being Globalized: Nearly 30 Million Acres Of U.S. Farmland Is Now Owned By Foreigners

All across America, U.S. farmland is being gobbled up by foreign interests. So when we refer to “the heartland of America”, the truth is that vast stretches of that “heartland” is now owned by foreigners, and most Americans have no idea that this is happening. These days, a lot of people are warning about the “globalization” of the world economy, but in reality our own soil is rapidly being “globalized”. When farms are locally owned, the revenue that those farms take in tends to stay in local communities. But with foreign-owned farms there is no guarantee that will happen. And while there is plenty of food to go around this is not a major concern, but what happens when a food crisis erupts and these foreign-owned farms just keep sending their produce out of the country? There are some very serious national security concerns here, and they really aren’t being addressed. Instead, the amount of farmland owned by foreigners just continues to increase with each passing year.

Prior to seeing the headline to this article, how much U.S. farmland would you have guessed that foreigners now own?

Personally, I had no idea that foreigners now own nearly 30 million acres. The following comes from NPR…

American soil.

Those are two words that are commonly used to stir up patriotic feelings. They are also words that can’t be be taken for granted, because today nearly 30 million acres of U.S. farmland are held by foreign investors. That number has doubled in the past two decades, which is raising alarm bells in farming communities.

How did we allow this to happen?

And actually laws regarding land ownership vary greatly from state to state. Some states have placed strict restrictions on foreign land ownership, while in other states it is “a free-for-all”…

“Texas is kind of a free-for-all, so they don’t have a limit on how much land can be owned,” say’s Ohio Farm Bureau’s Ty Higgins, “You look at Iowa and they restrict it — no land in Iowa is owned by a foreign entity.”

Ohio, like Texas, also has no restrictions, and nearly half a million acres of prime farmland are held by foreign-owned entities. In the northwestern corner of the state, below Toledo, companies from the Netherlands alone have purchased 64,000 acres for wind farms.

But even in states where there are restrictions, foreign entities can get around that by simply buying large corporations that own land.

For example, when the Chinese purchased Smithfield Foods in 2013 they instantly gained control over 146,000 acres of prime farmland. The following comes from Wikipedia…

Smithfield Foods, Inc., is a meat-processing company based in Smithfield, Virginia, in the United States, and a wholly owned subsidiary of WH Group of China. Founded in 1936 as the Smithfield Packing Company by Joseph W. Luter and his son, the company is the largest pig and pork producer in the world.^[4] In addition to owning over 500 farms in the US, Smithfield contracts with another 2,000 independent farms around the country to grow Smithfield’s pigs.^[5] Outside the US, the company has facilities in Mexico, Poland, Romania, Germany, and the United Kingdom.^[6] Globally the company employed 50,200 in 2016 and reported an annual revenue of $14 billion.^[2] Its 973,000-square-foot meat-processing plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina, was said in 2000 to be the world’s largest, processing 32,000 pigs a day.^[7]

Then known as Shuanghui Group, WH Group purchased Smithfield Foods in 2013 for $4.72 billion, more than its market value.^[8]^[9] It was the largest Chinese acquisition of an American company to date.^[10] The acquisition of Smithfield’s 146,000 acres of land made WH Group, headquartered in Luohe, Henan province, one of the largest overseas owners of American farmland.^[a]

Of course this hasn’t happened by accident.

The communist Chinese government has actually made the purchase of foreign agricultural assets a top national priority in recent years, and this has been reflected in a series of key documents…

The strategy is reflected in encouragements to invest abroad by various documents and articles issued by Chinese leaders. For example, a series of annual “Number one documents” from China’s communist party authorities stating rural policy have contained increasingly specific strategies for investment. A general exhortation to invest in agriculture overseas, issued in 2007, was followed by an initial surge in overseas farming ventures. In 2010, authorities called for supportive policies to encourage investment abroad.

The 2014 document included a more specific mandate to create large grain-trading conglomerates, designed to give Chinese companies greater control over oilseed and grain imports. That was the same year COFCO acquired Nidera and Noble Agri, making COFCO one of the largest trading companies in the world based on value of assets. The 2015 document specifically called for policies to support facilities, equipment, and inputs for agricultural production in foreign countries. The 2017 document broadened the encouragement to include all types of agricultural conglomerates. The 2018 document repeated the general endorsement of overseas investment and instructions to create multinational grain-trading and agricultural conglomerates.

In the end, how much Chinese ownership of our farmland would we be comfortable with?

If they owned 20 percent of our farmland, would we be okay with that?

Well, what if that figure surged to 30 or 40 percent?

Would that still be okay?

We need to start asking these sorts of questions, because foreigners are buying up more of our farmland with each passing day, and this is a very real national security threat.

And after this absolutely disastrous year, thousands more U.S. farmers will be forced out of business and it is anticipated that more U.S. farmland will be up for sale than ever before.

I extensively discussed the problems that farmers in the middle of the country are currently having yesterday, and today I would like to share with you a portion of an email that a friend in Missouri just sent me…

I work for a farmer in West-Central Missouri who raises corn, soybeans, and cattle and to say it’s been a challenging Spring would be the understatement of the year!!! We managed to get some corn planted in April but it started to rain and rain and rain and we still have more corn to plant. My boss doesn’t like to plant corn after May 15 and here it is May 27 and we still are not done planting corn. With each late day that passes by the yield goes down so what do you do??? Do we start planting soybeans if or when it dries up even though the price of soybeans is at a record low or do we plant corn that has risen in price but will have a reduced yield??? From April 28 through today (May 27) we have had 10 inches of rain. One day we had 4.5 inches with roads and basements flooded. Last week we had rain 4 out of those 7 days!!! It’s raining again today as I write this!!! We need warm, sunshine, dry, windy days and we get mostly cool, cloudy, rainy days. Next Thursdays low is supposed to be 57!!! If the weather pattern doesn’t change I don’t see how we can ever get the soybeans planted and we have 1,300 acres to plant. There are large farmers in my area that don’t have anything planted.

This truly is a “perfect storm” for U.S. farmers, and many believe that what we have witnessed so far is just the beginning.

Farm bankruptcies are already at the highest level that we have seen since the last recession, and do we really want foreigners gobbling up even more of our farmland from farmers that are incredibly desperate to sell?

Our founders never intended for America to be for sale to the highest bidder, and hopefully more states will start passing laws that will make sure that U.S. farms stay in the hands of U.S. farmers.

Crop Catastrophe In The Midwest – Latest USDA Crop Progress Report Indicates That A Nightmare Scenario Is Upon Us

The last 12 months have been the wettest in all of U.S. history, and this has created absolutely horrific conditions for U.S. farmers. Thanks to endless rain and historic flooding that has stretched on for months, many farmers have not been able to plant crops at all, and a lot of the crops that have actually been planted are deeply struggling. What this means is that U.S. agricultural production is going to be way, way down this year. The numbers that I am about to share with you are deeply alarming, and they should serve as a wake up call for all of us. The food that each one of us eats every day is produced by our farmers, and right now our farmers are truly facing a nightmare scenario.

You can view the latest USDA crop progress report right here. According to that report, corn and soybean production is way behind expectations.

Last year, 78 percent of all corn acreage had been planted by now. This year, that number is sitting at just 49 percent.

And the percentage of corn that has emerged from the ground is at a paltry 19 percent compared to 47 percent at this time last year.

We see similar numbers when we look at soybeans.

Last year, 53 percent of all soybean acreage had been planted by now. This year, that number has fallen to 19 percent.

And the percentage of soybeans that have emerged from the ground is just 5 percent compared to 24 percent at this time last year.

In other words, we are going to have a whole lot less corn and soybeans this year.

Farmers in the middle of the country desperately need conditions to dry out for an extended period of time, but so far that has not happened.

In fact, last week the heartland was hit by yet another string of devastating storms. The following comes from CNN…

Ten people are dead and a 4 year-old boy remains missing after more than a week of severe weather across the central US that put tens of millions of people at risk.

The deadly spring storm system ravaged several states, unleashing more than 170 reported tornadoes, fierce winds, drenching rain, flash flooding and hail.

One of the tornadoes that was spawned absolutely devastated the capital city of Missouri. It was reportedly a mile wide, and it stayed on the ground for almost 20 miles…

A clearer picture emerged Friday of the size and scope of the powerful tornadoes that tore across Missouri on Wednesday night, leaving a trail of destruction in their paths. The state’s capital, Jefferson City, was among the hardest-hit places, struck overnight by a tornado with a peak wind speed of 160 mph that has been given preliminary rating of EF3.

The monstrous nighttime tornado that struck Jefferson City, a city with a population of about 42,000, was almost a mile wide and was on the ground for nearly 20 miles, toppling homes, ripping roofs off homes and business below.

What we are witnessing is definitely not “normal”, and I have had a number of readers write to me about this recently. The other day one of my readers in Montana sent me a photograph of a freak May snowstorm that had just hit his area, and another one of my readers in Missouri explained that his boss is freaking out because they haven’t been able to get soybeans in the ground. All over the country people want answers, and they are frustrated with the lack of information that they are getting from the mainstream media.

Unfortunately, the truth is that things are going to get worse. Global weather patterns are dramatically shifting, and there is nothing that the authorities will be able to do to stop it from happening.

And it isn’t just in the United States where we are seeing widespread crop failures. I would encourage you to check out my previous article entitled “Floods And Drought Devastate Crops All Over The Planet – Could A Global Food Crisis Be Coming?” In that article I discussed the fact that Australia will actually be importing lots of wheat this year, but normally it is one of the largest exporters of wheat in the entire world. As crops fail all over the globe, there will be a scramble for food, and the wealthy western nations have more money than anyone else.

Over in Asia, the biggest problem right now is African Swine Flu. Earlier today, I came across a CNBC article which stated that “up to 200 million Chinese pigs” may have already been lost to this nightmarish disease…

A trade fight with the U.S. isn’t the only war China is fighting. African swine flu has decimated the pig population in China and sent pork prices soaring. As many as up to 200 million Chinese pigs have reportedly been lost due to the disease.

Now, Wall Street analysts are scrambling to assess the fallout from the fast spreading illness and how to invest around it.

The entire U.S. pork industry does not even produce 200 million pigs in an entire year.

So another way of looking at this is that the equivalent of what the entire U.S. pork industry produces in an entire year has just been wiped out.

And now African Swine Flu has spread to other countries such as Vietnam and Cambodia, and so this pandemic could soon become a true global cataclysm.

We have never seen so many massive threats hit the global food supply simultaneously, and if this article deeply alarms you that is a good thing.

A perfect storm is rapidly developing, and many expect global events to start accelerating dramatically.

Floods And Drought Devastate Crops All Over The Planet – Could A Global Food Crisis Be Coming?

It looks like global food production could be well below expectations in 2019, and that could spell big trouble in the months ahead. In recent weeks, I have written extensively about the problems that we have been experiencing here in the United States. As many as a million calves were lost to the flooding that hit the state of Nebraska in March, farmers have planted less than half of the corn that is normally in the ground by this time of the year, and a lot of the crops that have been planted in the middle of the country are really struggling due to extremely wet soil. But it isn’t just the United States that is facing a very troubling year. Earlier today, one of my readers sent me an article entitled “Global food crisis ahead as extreme weather events devastate crops and fields around the world” which I would encourage everyone to read. In that article, we are told that after the worst drought in 116 years Australia has actually been forced to import wheat. And according to the Guardian, this is the first time in 12 years that this has happened…

Australia is planning to import wheat for the first time in 12 years after drought across the eastern states saw grain production fall 20% last year.

The Department of Agriculture and Water Resources confirmed this week it had issued a bulk import permit to allow wheat to be brought in from Canada to be processed for the domestic market.

Normally, Australia exports a tremendous amount of wheat.

In fact, they were the fifth largest exporter of wheat in the entire world last year.

But now they are having to bring wheat in from Canada, and that is a very ominous sign.

The article on Strange Sounds also detailed crop failures in Italy, France, Mexico and Argentina. I will not reproduce all of that information here.

But one major crop failure that was missed in that article is the massive rice crop failure in the Philippines…

More than P350 million worth of damage on rice crops due to drought was recorded by the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist (OPA)-Capiz.

Per damage assessment report as of May 10, OPA information officer Florie May Castro said the damage on rice crops already reached P358,452,650 in the entire province of Capiz due to the dry spell.

All over the world, crops are being devastated by floods, drought and colder than expected temperatures, and many are desperately hoping for a return to normalcy for global weather patterns.

Things are particularly bad in North Korea. At this point, hardly any rain at all has fallen so far in 2019…

The rainfall is the lowest amount since 1982. Thus far in May, North Korea has seen 0.02 inches of rain. However, Pyongyang City, Nampho City, Kangwon Province and North and South Hwanghae provinces have seen no rainfall.

According to KCNA, if precipitation for the rest of May does not exceed 50% of the average annual precipitation, North Korea’s January to May rainfall totals will be about 3 inches, the lowest amount ever recorded for that time period.

With so little rain, farmers have had an exceedingly difficult time growing anything at all, and at this point the nation is facing an enormous food deficit…

Adding to the struggles is a widespread food shortage. The United Nations reported earlier this month that North Korea has a food deficit of 1.36 million metric tons. The 2018-2019 food crop production is an estimated 4.9 million metric tons, the lowest since the 2008-2009 season.

On top of everything else, let us not forget that African Swine Fever is absolutely devastating the global pig population.

According to the Hill, it is being projected that 200 million hogs could die from the disease in China alone…

Pork prices are expected rise as African swine fever decimates Chinese pigs, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

McDonald’s, Burger King, Jimmy Dean and Dunkin’ all reportedly expect sausage and bacon prices to rise this year as China has to import pigs to make up for the 200 million hogs that are expected to die from the disease.

To put that in perspective, that is more pigs than the entire U.S. pork industry produces in an entire year. For much more on this ongoing crisis, please see my previous article entitled ‘“An Estimated 150-200 Million Pigs” Have Been Hit By A Global Plague Of Biblical Proportions’.

Here in the United States, endless rain and unprecedented flooding have been the biggest problems. The previous 12 months have been the wettest in all of U.S. history, and the middle of the country just got hammered by yet another series of severe storms…

Heavy rain, high winds and hail has swept across the central states, bringing devastation to the region during a brutally wet spring period, leaving 22 million people braced for more flash flooding.

Four million residents were under a flash flood ’emergency warning’ on Tuesday morning, including in Oklahoma, where as much as five feet of water entered homes in Hominy, to the northeast of the state.

Some 22 tornadoes have been reported so far across Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas and Missouri, while rescue crews in boats pulled at least 50 people from flood waters as heavy downpours inundated roads and homes, said Oklahoma Emergency Management Agency.

Our planet is changing, and global weather patterns are going to keep shifting. The “new normal” is going to look a whole lot different from the “old normal”, and we all need to get prepared for a very uncertain future.

Even during the good years, the world has really struggled to feed everyone.

Now that we are facing catastrophic crop failures all over the planet, what will we do?

Many believe that a global food crisis is looming, and without a doubt U.S. consumers will soon be paying much higher prices when they visit the grocery store.

What Is Causing Extremely Bizarre Weather Patterns To Hammer The Middle Of The U.S. Over And Over Again?

The middle of the country has never seen anything quite like this. As 2019 began, the central portion of the nation was relentlessly hammered by bitter cold and massive snow storms, and many were hoping for better things once spring arrived. But then in March the flooding began, and it hasn’t stopped since. In fact, this is already the longest we have seen flooding along the Mississippi River since 1927, and there is no end in sight. By the time it is all said and done, all of the old records will probably be completely shattered. Meanwhile, powerful storms continue to pound the heartland every few days. Over the weekend, huge storms struck the middle of the country on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and more are expected on Monday. So what is causing such extremely bizarre weather to happen? Is there a reason why weather patterns have shifted so dramatically, or is all of this just a really, really strange coincidence?

Nobody can possibly claim that what we are witnessing is “normal”. According to the the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the last year has been the “wettest 12-month period in recorded history” for the lower 48 states…

The continental United States just recorded its wettest 12-month period in recorded history, while also moving one step closer to being drought-free, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Needless to say, all of this wet weather has caused a tremendous amount of flooding, and at this point this is the longest-lasting Mississippi River flood since 1927…

Mississippi River flooding has been ongoing for three months or longer in some locations, making it the longest-lasting flood there since the Great Flood of 1927, the worst flood in modern history on the lower Mississippi River.

Take Vicksburg, Mississippi, for example.

The Mississippi River went above flood stage there on Feb. 17, and has remained in flood ever since. The National Weather Service said this is the longest continuous stretch above flood stage since 1927 at Vicksburg.

And since there is no end in sight for the flooding, all of the old records may end up being broken by a very wide margin.

Very weird weather is happening out west too. In fact, several feet of snow just fell in the mountains of California…

Parts of California still resemble a scene out of winter, with a series of storms bringing several feet of snow to mountain areas, ahead of a “significant” severe weather threat across the nation’s midsection.

The National Weather Service said that a series of Pacific storms are bringing heavy rain, mountain snow, and gusty winds across the West. A winter storm warning was issued Wednesday night that will run through Friday morning for the southern Sierra Nevada.

In every year there are moments of bad weather. But that isn’t what we are talking about. In 2019, it is as if we are being hit with a sledgehammer day after day after day.

Of course this has been absolutely disastrous for agricultural production. At this point, U.S. farmers have planted less than half the corn that they were expected to plant by now. For much more on this, please see my previous article entitled “Total Catastrophe For U.S. Corn Production: Only 30% Of U.S. Corn Fields Have Been Planted – 5 Year Average Is 66%”.

We like to think that we are not vulnerable to the vagaries of the weather thanks to all of our advanced technology, but that is not true at all.

And over the weekend, things got even worse.

Starting on Friday and Saturday, a string of immensely powerful storms devastated communities all over the Midwest…

A plethora of tornado reports began rolling in Friday in Nebraska and Kansas. On Saturday, almost a dozen were reported in Texas and Oklahoma. In Texas, the National Weather Service Abilene/San Angelo concluded that an EF2 tornado with winds of up to 135 mph damage homes in San Angelo.

Dru Lewis was hunkered down with his family as the storm battered his home.

“There was a suction … from under the door, I could feel it,” he said. “Then all the windows just exploded. It was just chaos from there until the storm died down.”

Then on Sunday, more huge storms produced literally dozens of tornadoes across the region…

Severe thunderstorms continued to rumble across parts of the U.S. Sunday, damaging buildings in Louisiana after spawning more than three dozen reports of tornadoes across five states.

Several homes and businesses were damaged and power lines and trees were down throughout Evangeline Parish, Louisiana, after severe thunderstorms and possible tornadoes moved through the area early Sunday morning. The town of Ville Platte, about 76 miles northwest of Baton Rouge, was especially hard hit.

Unfortunately, there is still more to come. In fact, an entirely new weather system will hit the middle of the country on Monday…

On Monday, a new system will develop off the High Plains and slide east into the Southern Plains. The dry line will interact with an increasingly moist and unstable air mass that will develop across parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas.

Unfortunately, that means very favorable conditions for violent severe weather in parts of this region.

We are being told that the storms on Monday could affect nearly 50 million people.

For a long time I have been warning that global weather patterns are dramatically changing, but at first a lot of people wanted to argue that it wasn’t true.

Well, these days the number of people that want to claim that I am wrong has gone way down.

Of course throughout all of human history weather patterns have always been changing, and so change isn’t something that is new.

But the changes that we are witnessing in our time appear to be taking an apocalyptic turn, and nobody is exactly sure what is going to happen next…

Total Catastrophe For U.S. Corn Production: Only 30% Of U.S. Corn Fields Have Been Planted – 5 Year Average Is 66%

2019 is turning out to be a nightmare that never ends for the agriculture industry. Thanks to endless rain and unprecedented flooding, fields all over the middle part of the country are absolutely soaked right now, and this has prevented many farmers from getting their crops in the ground. I knew that this was a problem, but when I heard that only 30 percent of U.S. corn fields had been planted as of Sunday, I had a really hard time believing it. But it turns out that number is 100 percent accurate. And at this point corn farmers are up against a wall because crop insurance final planting dates have either already passed or are coming up very quickly. In addition, for every day after May 15th that corn is not in the ground, farmers lose approximately 2 percent of their yield. Unfortunately, more rain is on the way, and it looks like thousands of corn farmers will not be able to plant corn at all this year. It is no exaggeration to say that what we are facing is a true national catastrophe.

According to the Department of Agriculture, over the past five years an average of 66 percent of all corn fields were already planted by now…

U.S. farmers seeded 30% of the U.S. 2019 corn crop by Sunday, the government said, lagging the five-year average of 66%. The soybean crop was 9% planted, behind the five-year average of 29%.

Soybean farmers have more time to recover, but they are facing a unique problem of their own which we will talk about later in the article.

But first, let’s take a look at the corn planting numbers from some of our most important corn producing states. I think that you will agree that these numbers are almost too crazy to believe…

Iowa: 48 percent planted – 5 year average 76 percent

Minnesota: 21 percent planted – 5 year average 65 percent

North Dakota: 11 percent planted – 5 year average 43 percent

South Dakota: 4 percent planted – 5 year average 54 percent

Yes, you read those numbers correctly.

Can you imagine what this is going to do to food prices?

Many farmers are extremely eager to plant crops, but the wet conditions have made it impossible. The following comes from ABC 7 Chicago…

McNeill grows corn and soybeans on more than 500 acres in Grayslake. But much of his farmland is underwater right now, and all of it is too wet to plant. Rain is a farmer’s friend in the summer but in the spring too much rain keeps farmers from planting.

The unusually wet spring has affected farmers throughout the Midwest, but Illinois has been especially hard hit. Experts say with the soil so wet, heavy and cold, it takes the air out and washes nutrients away, making it difficult if not impossible for seeds to take root.

Right now, soil moisture levels in the state of Illinois “are in the 90th to 99th percentile statewide”. In other words, the entire state is completely and utterly drenched.

As a result, very few Illinois farmers have been able to get corn or soybeans in the ground at this point…

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s crop progress reports, about 11% of Illinois corn has been planted and about 4% of soybeans. Last year at this time, 88% of corn and 56% of soybeans were in the ground.

I would use the word “catastrophe” to describe what Illinois farmers are facing, but the truth is that what they are going through is far beyond that.

Normally, if corn farmers have a problem getting corn in the ground then they just switch to soybeans instead. But thanks to the trade war, soybean exports have plummeted dramatically, and the price of soybeans is the lowest that it has been in a decade.

As a result there is very little profit, if any, in growing soybeans this year…

Farmers in many parts of the corn belt have suffered from a wet and cooler spring, which has prevented them from planting corn. Typically when it becomes too late to plant corn, farmers will instead plant soybeans, which can grow later into the fall before harvest is required. Yet now, planting soybeans with the overabundance already in bins and scant hope for sales to one of the biggest buyers in China, could raise the risk of a financial disaster.

And if the wet conditions persist, many soybean farms are not going to be able to plant crops at all this year.

Sadly, global weather patterns are continuing to go haywire, and much more rain is coming to the middle of the country starting on Friday…

Any hopes of getting corn and soybean planting back on track in the U.S. may be washed away starting Friday as a pair of storms threaten to deliver a “one-two punch” of soaking rain and tornadoes across the Great Plains and Midwest through next week.

As much as 3 to 5 inches (8 to 13 centimeters) of rain will soak soils from South Dakota and Minnesota south to Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas, according to the U.S. Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.

We have never had a year quite like this before, and U.S. food production is going to be substantially below expectations. I very much encourage everyone to get prepared for much higher food prices and a tremendous amount of uncertainty in the months ahead.

Even though I have been regularly documenting the nightmarish agricultural conditions in the middle of the country, the numbers in this article are much worse than I thought they would be at this point in 2019.

This is truly a major national crisis, and it is just getting started.

The Last Days Of An American Dairy Farm: “Hard To Believe It’s Over”

(NBC News) Since 1970, more than 90 perfect of all U.S. dairy farms have closed due to low milk prices and industry restructuring. Recently, a corporate decision by Walmart led to the shutdown of a three-generation family-run dairy farm in Kentucky. We followed the Coombs family as they’re forced to sell off the last of their dairy cows and try to make sense of what’s ahead.

U.S. Farmers Are Killing Themselves At Record Levels That We Have Never Seen Before

Farmers in the United States are feeling more financial pressure than ever before, and that is just one of the reasons why the suicide rate for farmers is about five times as high as for the population as a whole…

“Think about trying to live today on the income you had 15 years ago.” That’s how agriculture expert Chris Hurt describes the plight facing U.S. farmers today.

The unequal economy that’s emerged over the past decade, combined with patchy access to health care in rural areas, have had a severe impact on the people growing America’s food. Recent data shows just how much. Farmers are dying by suicide at a higher rate than any other occupational group, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The suicide rate in the field of farming, fishing and forestry is 84.5 per 100,000 people — more than five times that of the population as a whole. That’s even as the nation overall has seen an increase in suicide rates over the last 30 years.

Please pray for our farmers, because many of them have been forced deeply into debt, and more family farms are dying off with each passing day…

Midwest Farm Bubble Continues Collapse As Farm Incomes Expected To Crash In 2017

Earlier this week the U.S Department of Agriculture released its biannual report of farm incomes which paints a very bleak picture for the American farmer. In its first forecast for 2017, the USDA sees real farm cash receipts down 14% versus 2015 and 36% from the previous high set in 2012 as farm debt continues to soar and leverage surges to all-time highs.

As the Wall Street Journal notes, the deadly combination of rising input costs, lower grain prices, a strong dollar and excessive leverage will likely force many of America’s Midwest farmers out of business in 2017.

(Read the rest of the story here…)