Year 4, Month 9, Day 3: Headin’ For A Fall…

I wonder when Ownership is going to take notice. The Farm Journal:

Drought conditions have rapidly spread and worsened in Iowa, Minnesota and Illinois over the past six weeks, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. But longer term, odds are that conditions will improve in the eastern half of the Corn Belt, while worsening again in the western half, experts say.

This week’s hot, dry weather helped late-planted corn and soybeans catch up, but lack of water could also prevent proper ear filling in non-irrigated corn.

Dug out an old one, filed off the serial numbers, and sent it on. August 29:

It’s harder and harder to reject the evidence for the slow-motion catastrophe of climate change. As Duke Ellington’s old song says, “Things ain’t what they used to be” — and there’s nobody in our society better equipped to recognize this than our nation’s farmers, now reeling from sustained droughts that are approaching Dust Bowl proportions.

But while more people are aware of the problem, much of our agricultural infrastructure is stuck in the past. With equipment and systems belonging to a period of conspicuous consumption, both farming and manufacturing sectors waste unimaginable quantities of water every day — and there’s nothing like a prolonged drought to remind us that it’s not a disposable commodity, but a precious resource.

While technological improvements are essential to properly husband our dwindling water supplies, the most important transformations must be in our collective behavior and attitudes. Climate change’s most important lesson may well be that the era of waste is ended.

Warren Senders