Livestock pastures on many Houston-area farms are turning to dirt, some covered in 1-inch cracks that would take a tropical storm to fill.
At the same time, an auction house west of Houston reports an ever-increasing stampede of cattle being sold. Ranchers say they do not have the food and water to keep them alive.
Yellowing, burned-out fields of corn, meanwhile, are so stunted that sometimes they don’t even produce a single ear.
Texas farmers and ranchers report their livestock and crop prospects in most every sector are withering under the relentless heat and drought as experts fear the state’s $100 billion agriculture market is poised to face an all-time record loss.
Travis Miller, who heads the state’s agriculture extension service in College Station, predicts that this year the state will more than double its worst recorded loss of $4.1 billion in 2006.
“The 2006 drought hit only the bottom third of our state, but this one is more extreme and striking 90 percent of the state,” he explained.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Thursday released its first snapshot of the anticipated crop harvests for 2011.
It paints a bleak picture for Texas: cotton production (Texas’ No. 1 cash crop) is expected to plummet by 43 percent compared with last year; corn is expected to drop by 41 percent; winter wheat fell by 60 percent; sorghum (feed grain) is down by 46 percent; soybeans (a smaller Texas crop) dropped 61 percent; rice (the only bright spot because it’s irrigated) still declines by 4 percent. Read more:
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