Surviving on mind for dried-out Virginia agriculture

By JANE W. GRAHAM
AFP Correspondent

As August reaches mid-month, survival is uppermost in the minds of most Virginia farmers who are feeling the stress of a record-breaking winter, followed by a record-breaking summer.
The winter with its cold and snow depleted the state’s hay reserves and the haying season has not come anywhere near replenishing it with some folks already feeding hay because of dried-up pastures.
Virginia’s government is taking it just as seriously.
“Due to the severe drought that is affecting most of the commonwealth this summer, the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services is working through the Virginia Department of Emergency Management to provide statewide relief from shortages of hay and animal feed products” the agency announced in a news release Aug. 9. “Accordingly, the Virginia Department of Transportation and the Department of Motor Vehicles have granted temporary waivers of registration and license requirements along with normal weight and width restrictions for carriers transporting emergency supplies of hay or animal feed.”
Elaine Lidholm, VDACS spokeswoman, said that the exemptions extend statewide. In previous years, exemptions were granted to localities designated as primary and contiguous natural disaster areas by the USDA.
“The exemptions became effective at 6 p.m., Aug. 6 and will remain in effect until 6 a.m. on Oct. 6, or whenever the drought crisis has abated, whichever comes first,” the release stated.
“Several state agencies worked with VDEM to notify affected haulers of the exemptions,” Lidholm reported in the release. “This multi-agency cooperation helps ensure essential emergency relief supplies and livestock feed reach the disaster areas in a timely manner and precludes inadvertent ticketing or detention.”
Matthew J. Lohr, VDACS Commissioner, said, “The drought of 2010 is turning out to be one of the worst in years, and farmers need these waivers to ensure that feed, hay and other emergency supplies are transported to them as quickly as possible.”
He added that VDACS is monitoring the drought situation and assisting with requests from localities for federal drought designation declarations.
“After a wet start to the year we have dried out and burnt up in Southside Virginia,” Chris Teutsch, a forage researcher working at Virginia Tech’s Southern Piedmont Agriculture and Research Extension Center in Blackstone, wrote at the end of June. “We had the sixth driest June ever recorded at our research station and the hottest! We had 19 days over 90 (degrees) and two over 100. Reaching 100 in June is very rare.”
July continued the trend across the state.
“The end result is significantly reduced late spring and summer forage production,” Teutsch said. “This has left many producers grasping at straws when it comes to feeding their cows this winter.”
“With record heat in June and July and lack of rain in more than three-quarters of the state, the drought situation in Virginia has reached critical proportions,” the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services reports on its web site. “Most of Virginia is experiencing crop losses and yield reductions due to drought and extremely high temperatures in 2010. Many localities have requested the Governor’s assistance in obtaining a secretarial disaster designation.
“All requests from local governments for disaster designation due to drought are sent to Gov. Bob McDonnell who coordinates with the Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry and the Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services in processing the requests,” the agency said.
Bill McKinnon, executive secretary of the Virginia Cattlemen’s Association, outlined what is happening in the beef segment of the industry in “The Cattle Market,” published in the August edition of The Virginia Cattleman.
He pointed out that cattle producers did not plan for a week of 100 degree weather with no rain in late June, something that might possibly be expected in July or August.
Neither did they expect a 50-cent, per-bushel jump in corn prices in two weeks, he said
“Almost every section of the state bore the hot, dry weather during last June and early July,” McKinnon said. “Far Southwest Virginia probably faired a little better than most of the state. It was frustrating to watch the volume of grass disappear a little everyday even if cattle were not grazing it.”
He said the weather has brought additional cattle to the sale barns.
“During the last week of June and the first two weeks of July, feeder cattle receipts were 45 percent greater than the average of the previous two years,” he said. “We were fortunate to see good demand from cattle feeders, but frustrated to witness a truck shortage in early July.”
McKinnon reported on the 50-cent jump corn prices, citing USDA’s report downsizing the number of acres of corn planted one week and revising their ending corn stock estimates downward by 200 million bushels the next week.
McKinnon found one bright spot in the state’s cattle industry — fed cattle. He said cattle feeders are making some money on cattle being sold now, a refreshing occurrence “after two long years of losses and vitally important to feeder cattle sellers.”
Because cool season grasses make up much of the state’s grazing lands, producers have come to expect and even prepare for slumps in the hot months of July and August.
One such producer who did not want his named used, said even with developing a Bermuda grass stand over the past few years and planting sudangrass and nurturing his alfalfa stand this summer, he is nervous about having enough for his cattle to eat in the next weeks and months.
Teutsch and his colleagues in VCE have developed some strategies that farmers can use in the hope of helping themselves as they deal with the next weeks of predicted hot weather and plan for winter.
More information can be found at http://www.arec.vaes.vt.edu/southern-piedmont/forages/index.hmtl.
More information is available in Gordon Groover’s “Farm Business Management Update,” at http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/news/farm-business-management-update.html.