Fox Business Network Flies the Skies Covering the Midwest Drought

July 27, 2012 | Filed under Categories | Posted by

The Midwest has been suffering a major drought this year, one that will surely cost us all in higher food prices over the coming years. Fox Business Network has been literally flying the friendly skies — in a helicopter — to cover it.

FBN’s intrepid reporter of the skies, Jeff Flock, has been touring the Midwest reviewing the effects of the drought and covering the devastation it’ll wreck on the country.

Flock has literally been flying around in a helicopter covering the drought. Yesterday I got some updates on Flock’s journey right from the whirley-rider himself.

Over the past month our team has reported live from corn fields already lost to the drought, irrigated fields with corn plants over your head, a grain elevator that expanded to hold what was expected to be a record harvest, and a dairy farm using fans and spraying cows with water to keep their herds cool. I’ve also been to the corn and bean pits at the CME where traders have bid up both commodities to record levels. And I’ve also reported from a chopper 1200 feet in the air over the drought-baked Midwest landscape.

Each of our stops has brought a texture to what is a complicated and compelling story that has yet to fully unfold.


Over the fields in Sugar Grove, Illinois

Take Thursday’s chopper trip over the farm town of Sugar Grove, Illinois. The country singer Jason Aldean has a song called “Flyover States” which is about the Midwest and how people on the coasts only know the likes of Indiana, Missouri, Iowa and Illinois from flying over but never stopping in them. Just like in the song, we found that just flying over gives a skewed picture of the drought.

For instance, because of recent rains much of the corn and soybean crop has “greened up.” What was looking brown and parched last week has taken on a lush look from the air. Yes, there are still brown spots and entire fields visible that have already been chopped for silage or in the case of the driest spots, mowed down as completely useless. But the predominant color from the air is green which might give the impression the drought is over.

But when we landed and looked up close at one of those green fields we flew over we found a very different story…corn plants that have failed to set ears, ones that have failed to pollinate and plenty of ears that are short or have few kernels.

Sugar Grove grain farmer Jeff Borneman told us that while the plants look okay to the casual observer, the fact is the yields will be cut dramatically. And no amount of rain after this will help. This is why after a couple days of profit-taking and price drops on grains, the rally at the CME has resumed.


In Hanna, Indiana

Looking at the crop in the field from both the air and on the ground it’s easy to see why Goldman Sachs said this week that $9/bushel corn and $20/bushel soybeans is possible. Stocks of both crops coming into this year were extremely tight and with drought in South American bean fields and similar dry conditions in Europe, the world supply of these two crucially important grains figures to remain low putting prices at a premium here in the biggest corn and bean producing country in the world.

The good news in this is that farmers who do harvest a crop will likely be getting premium prices.


Reporting from the fields in Knox, Indiana

We visited fields in northern Indiana under irrigation to see what corn with normal moisture looks like. Though costly to set up, farmers who have sandy soil that doesn’t hold moisture very well find it makes sense for them. This year, because of the ability to provide consistent “rainfall” to their crops, they will have normal yields but instead of selling at normal prices ($4/bushel or so) their corn will likely fetch twice that.

I covered the nation’s last widespread drought in 1988 (See my ear of corn a souvenir from that reportage). Though the later developing bean crop could still be rescued by solid rainfall over the rest of the summer, 2012 still has the potential to rival ’88 in severity and, because of tight stockpiles and increased world demand, could have even more far-reaching impacts than that last worst drought almost a quarter century ago.

Look for Flock’s reports on Fox Business Network. Check your cable provider to see where you can find it and if your service doesn’t offer FBN, be sure to ask them for it.

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Posted by on July 27, 2012.
Filed under Categories.
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago-based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com and BigJournalism.com, RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, RightPundits.com, StoptheACLU.com, Human Events Magazine, among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events.He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book "Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture" which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of PubliusForum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions, EMAIL Warner Todd Huston: igcolonel .at. hotmail.com"The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it." --Samuel Johnson

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  • ackwired

    Just imagine how bad it would be if man were doing something to contribute to climate change!

    • herddog505

      Yep. Why, it might get hot and dry in the summer. The horror!

    • PBunyan

      That’s the rule isn’t it? If it supports your shaky, poorly founded hypothesis then it’s proof of “climate change”, if it refutes it, then it’s just local weather. Droughts happen periodically. Warms summers do too. And the both have been since long before the first fossil fuel was ever burned by a human.

      • ackwired

        It sounds like you are also glad that man is not doing anything that would cause the climate to change.

        • PBunyan

          I’m glad man is not capable of causing global climate change because if we could we’d surely try and thus fuck everything up, just like when the government tries to fix real problems and pretty much always ultimately makes things worse.

          • ackwired

            Do you suppose that if man set off a few nuclear devices that if might effect the climate?

          • jim_m

            There have been 521 nuclear weapons detonated above ground, Total yield is slightly over 479 Megatons.
            Yes, that is just a fraction of the estimated 19,000 warheads currently in existence.

            Exactly how much do you think we need to detonate? And would it matter if we changed the climate and everyone was already dead?

          • http://www.rustedsky.net JLawson

            When you consider the Soviets detonated the largest – the Tsar Bomba at 50 megatons in ’61, you’d have thought we’d see something in the climatic record at the time.

            Didn’t seem to be anything notable…

            Wouldn’t conclude that it’s NOT possible to change the climate from that, but I think it’s pretty unlikely. (And those claims of ‘nuclear winter’ from an all-out exchange? Possibly exaggerated, but if it caused hesitation on the part of the button-pushers, I ain’t gonna gripe about how how accurate or not it might have been.)

          • jim_m

            Definitely exaggerated. I recall when Mt St Helens erupted they claimed that it would be decades before anything could grow on the slopes of the mountain. Plants started poking through the soil the next spring.

            The environmentalists can’t predict what will happen a year from now. Why should we listen to anything they claim?

          • ackwired

            No problem then.

    • http://www.wizbangblog.com David Robertson

      Man does not need to do anything in order for the climate to change. The Medieval Warm Period was a global phenomenon, and it occurred before the Industrial Revolution. If such a global warm period occurred before and without Mankind causing it, then I see no reason why one can’t occur again without Man’s help.

  • PBunyan

    Some farmers were lucky here in Michigan as a lot of the corn tassled later when the rain finally started so they still set nice ears- except for the stuff that was planted really early. The corn that was planted late is only 3 feet tall and tassling right now so those guys are kinda screwed, too, like the early stuff. If the rain keeps up the soybean crop should be decent.
    The bad thing is that the acreage of field crops in Michigan is a spit in the bucket compared to a lot of the midwestern states and in the more southern states the corn tassled a lot earlier.
    Now we do have a lot of fruit, but this year unless the farmer had anti-frost equipment that crop was lost. The figure I heard was 90% lost. The only fruit that’s making a crop is blueberries which flowered later. My friend works at a large processing plant and he said they had to get all their cherries from Poland this year. (Damn, I guess it’s not global climate change, it must just be weather. Sorry, Marxists.)
    I was farming back in ’88 and that drought was worse. I don’t think it rained between April 1st and July 15th that year.

  • Brian_R_Allen

    @FoxNews @SkyNewsAust #auspol #teaparty

    No mention of what causes the potentially truly catastrophic world-wide food shortage and soaring prices.

    That the feds having mandated the use of biofuels – ethanol, eg – has caused more than 40% of America’s food/grain crops to be diverted to the expensive wasteful and pointless production of fuel.

    • jim_m

      The dems don’t give a damn how many people are starved to death as long as they bow to the gods of global warming.