Farming Challenges

This year has been anything but normal. I expected to experience the January flooding but saw dusty roads. Good for the drivers but bad for the farmers.

Before we left in December we already knew that many of the rice crops planted earlier in September and October did not germinate. The plan was that these crops could be harvested in January. Other farmers planted in December, planning to harvest in April. But the rains still not come, resulting in poor production from lack of moisture.

Water in the fields serves two purposes. The first is moisture for the crops. Rice does not need to stand in water to grow and we could get into the technicalities of aeration and the water capacities of soils but I will leave that to the experts. The second advantage of standing water is that the grass seeds do not germinate when everything is wet. So, when we have a dry season such as we just experienced, the rice does not grow as well and the grasses and weeds quickly surpass it.

Now add another problem -- no combines available when the rice was ready to harvest. Many of the combine operators worked on the other side of Santa Cruz harvesting the larger fields of soy beans. Considering payment is made per hectare it makes good business sense to work the larger fields. However, that meant that there were no combines available for the smaller fields. There is a very small window for harvesting rice at its prime. When it is dry, the rice shatters when hulled and the value drops significantly. Without a combine, most of the rice in our area was harvested when it was much to dry. In many fields the grasses continued to grow and when the combines were finally available, there was too much grass and too little rice so the fields were not harvested.

Then add the third problem. The value of rice has dropped since last year. Farmers based their profit estimates on the price of the previous year and are now very disappointed. The general price has dropped and then there is the dockage for the rice being too dry. And that is if you are able to sell your rice. We have ours in storage because no one was buying. Some farmers have stood in line for two or three days just waiting to sell rice.

The farmers who planted 'chaco' rice, which is harvested by hand, were able to harvest on time and get a good price. But too many have experienced the ease of mechanized farming and decided that they would do it the easy way. Sadly, the easy way doesn't always bring a profit so many will be experiencing a very thin year financially.

Farming, no matter where it is, is a next year occupation. In spite of the problems, the rice will be planted again next fall with hopes of more rain and better prices.