After a relatively normal spring, we’re experiencing yet another extremely dry summer here in Southwest Iowa, and the whole of the Great Plains for that matter. The corn is taking it hard and many nearby operators, at least those with cattle, are cutting more silage than they would have liked given the high corn prices. I’m starting to see chopped fields with a few rows remaining to assess the yield impacts, and crop insurance adjustors on side-by-sides riding next to these rows doing the arithmetic. The few irrigators we have are working their systems to the limits and, at the local café, have been showing us the dramatic difference in development of corn ears between irrigated and dryland parcels.
But not much is heard at the local café about investing in irrigation, which is puzzling given the drought trend we’ve been on and historically high commodity prices. There are certainly exceptions. My adjacent neighbors, for instance, have installed several center pivots in the last two years, but we’re not seeing much increase in irrigated acreage on some of the bottomlands and gentler slopes where it would be expected. So, what information have I ignored when asserting that irrigation on the eastern edge of the Great Plains (or western edge of the Corn Belt) appears economically feasible? Using nonscientific and informal survey techniques involving showing up at lunchtime, I set out to see why my non-irrigating neighbors don’t yet irrigate.
As expected, I found that barriers to adopting irrigation fall within three categories, including cultural, physical and financial ones. What surprised me was that the categories cannot be equally weighted.
Cultural reasons appear to carry less weight than I previously thought. The relatively old age of owner-operators and a historic lack of exposure to irrigation is significant, but these old guys do their research and also have other family members who are technology-adopters. After experiencing severe drought two of the last three years, and five of the last 10, as irrigation starts to pencil-out, they will adopt it.
The relatively old age of owner-operators and a historic lack of exposure to irrigation is significant, but these old guys do their research and also have other family members who are technology-adopters.
Physical reasons such as lack of adequate water supply and slopes appear to be more important than previously thought. Those gently sloping hills are beyond alluvial aquifers, many of the streams are naturally dry in the summer and some of the bottomlands cannot produce sufficient well yield to run center pivots. There is still a lot of land compatible to irrigation, but not as much as there might be with some sort of reservoir storage. Water supply is available but not always at the time and location desired.
Finally, the financial category should also be weighted higher than I previously thought. About half the nearby farmland is owned by family trusts and nonfarmers who receive cash rents invariant to droughts. It is hard to imagine their sharing the irrigation investment cost with the tenant, at least around here, and a tenant would be taking a risk making such a long-term commitment without some corresponding long-term assurance they could stick around. Also, I’m not aware of the local banking community loaning for irrigation development, but I’ll do more research on this before further disparaging bankers.
And lastly, I’d like to mention that I retired from consulting at the end of June, after 39 years of punching the clock. Thanks to Headwaters Corporation for the last six years, by far the best, and for giving me time to write this column. I will be continuing working as an independent consultant, spending more time on the family farm and writing this column as long as they let me.