paid out $17 billion in 2020 in crop insurance payouts and other subsidies to farmers that might encourage continued farming in flood-prone areas, according to the Environmental Working Group’s databases.Ĭurt Zingula, an Eastern Iowa landowner and retired farmer, knows the drainage tile he installed to keep his fields dry after heavy rains has the potential to harm water quality in nearby streams. These practices, including cover crops and reduced tilling, also help to retain rainfall.Īt the same time, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s largest agricultural conservation programs - which paid out $7.4 billion combined from 2017 to 2020 - used less than 12 percent of that on “climate-smart” practices, according to a study the Environmental Working Group released Sept. Individual farmers aren’t the only ones who forget about the devastation of flooding caused by climate change. “They have forgotten the flooding years,” Jensen said. Jensen said roughly half the applicants flooded in 2019 pulled out when their land dried enough to use again. Landowners who don’t get an easement likely will keep farming flood-prone areas, causing further erosion and nutrient pollution in waterways.Īnd those who have to wait too long for payments may also back out.
More than 360 Iowa landowners applied to retire flooded land in 2019 - far more than could have been funded, said Sindra Jensen, a former NRCS Iowa easements coordinator who now works for NRCS at the national level. These rainfalls cause problems from the moment they hit the ground all the way downstream. The increase in rainfall over the course of a year might obscure that skies are sometimes staying clear for weeks, then giving way to deluges that fill rain gauges all at once. Generally, climate data shows that the region is getting more rain - but the times when it falls are also changing, said Austin Pearson, a climatologist with the Midwestern Regional Climate Center. Harder rainfalls are one of the clearest climate signals emerging in the Upper Midwest. “We need to ask, how can we best manage all this water, because we’ve compromised the system so much already.” Murky waters “We need to start working with it instead of fighting it,” she continued. “This rain isn’t going away,” said Jennifer Kanine, the director of natural resources for the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi, which has worked to restore wetlands in northwest Indiana’s agricultural areas. How communities adapt will determine what kind of farming they can do. With a changing climate, the farms of the future will look different, experts say. At the same time as human-driven climate change is juicing precipitation, Corn Belt farming practices such as installing underground drainage tiles and leaving fields bare after harvest are changing how water moves across the landscape and into waterways.Īll that water has to go somewhere. McCormick’s delayed planting is one example of how a changing climate - and the rains that come with it - are transforming farm country in the Mississippi River watershed.Ī hotter atmosphere is causing rain to fall in heavier bursts, pushing back planting seasons and drowning crops. “My dad used to say that after July 10, ‘You’re kidding yourself trying to plant,’” said McCormick, who was trying to produce a crop for the landlords who own these fields. The southwest Indiana farmer had to drill soybeans in August - for a second time last year, having already lost his spring-planted corn crop - after yet another heavy rain flooded his river-bottom field. But while most farmers were preparing for harvest, Ray McCormick was climbing back into his tractor to redrill his soybeans. Corn was just starting to tassel across much of the Midwest, including fields in southern Indiana, a golden crown signaling the end of the season.
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