Midwest Flooding Threatens Crops

International Herald Tribune:

NEWHALL, Iowa: Here, in some of the best soil in the world, the stunted stalks of Dave Timmerman's newly planted corn are wilting in what sometimes look more like rice paddies than the plains, the sunshine glinting off of pools of collected water. Although time is running out, he has yet to plant all of his soybean crop because the waterlogged soil cannot support his footsteps, much less heavy machinery.

Timmerman's small farm has been flooded four times in the past month by the Wildcat Creek, a tributary of the Cedar River which overflowed its banks at a record 31 feet last week, causing catastrophic damage in nearby Cedar Rapids and other eastern Iowa towns and farmsteads.

Read the whole story: International Herald Tribune

Comments

[wm1066]

The Army Corp of Engineers has damned diked and levied every bit of land up and down the Mississippi, the Minnesota river, the Cedar river, and every major river in the midwest, so any rain water shoots down stream, instead of getting to sink into the soil. They have no release spillways.
In the Phoenix valley they have canals and spillways and a major Dam (Roosevelt) but they built in holding areas for flood water if the dam gives way. The Army Corp when they built all those dikes and earthen berms didn't put any release spillways into the midwest system.

[noneIn2008]

Details inside the USDA reports show the crops were already behind due to a colder than average spring. However, the USDA guessed crops might achieve record yields. Wrong. The mid-West floods will place more pressure on the crop yields. FOOD will be the key issue this year. Keep an eye on food shortages and food prices.