The Long Dry Summer

By Alexander Taylor

Temperatures remain over 100-o in many areas, and the farm losses rise

The Great Heat Wave and Drought of 1980 abated slightly last week. Brief but welcome rain, ranging from a trace to a downpour, fell over the U.S. But the rains never came to central Texas, and for the past month, virtually no rain has fallen there, or in most of Oklahoma and parts of Arkansas and New Mexico. When the rains finally came down, so did temperatures that have been breaking records for weeks throughout the Midwest and South. In Dallas and Fort Worth two of the hardest-hit cities in the country, the temperature has hit 100DEG or more for 33 consecutive days.

National weather experts did not know if last week's short respite in some areas meant a break in the nation's agony or only a temporary reprieve. By week's end the killing heat and drought had caused the death of more than 1,200 people by some estimates and cost farmers millions of dollars in lost crops and livestock.

The oppressive summer weather in most sections of the country was only part of what has become a season of economic distress. Declining consumer price increases in April and May fostered the hope that inflation had peaked and was on the way down. But in June consumer prices jumped back up by 1%, an annual rate of of 12.7%, despite a 1% decrease in the cost of gasoline and only a slight increase in food bills. The sharp price hike was caused largely by the 1.8% rise in housing costs. The latest increase throws into question the Administration's estimate that inflation will tail off to 9.8% in 1981.

While inflation made consumers see red, the skies remained a relentless blue. The heat wave again proved that despite the best air conditioning and modern technology, people can still fall prey to nature's whims. The victims as usual were the poor, the old and the helpless. In Fort Worth, Patricia Harris, 17, left her son LaMont, 2, in her car while she went to work as a $3.50-an-hour hospital orderly. Within three hours, the temperature in the auto had reached 130DEG and the boy had died. In Fulton County, Ga., police found an old man lying dead in his home, as an electric fan aimlessly circulated the stifling air. Apparently fearing intruders, the man had nailed shut his windows and bolted three locks on the door.

In Little Rock, Ark., Ralph LaForge, 70, a former University of Arkansas football star, collapsed and died of a heart attack and a heat stroke after playing nine holes in 102DEG weather. His best friend and golfing companion, Edward Taldo, 66, died half an hour later of the same causes while on his way to notify LaForge's widow.

Nor was youth any protection against the searing sun. Randy Bossing, 26, was working last week on his roof in Missouri. He took frequent breaks to douse himself with water from a garden hose but soon began complaining that he felt faint. Then he slumped over dead, another victim of the heat.

Hardest hit by the high temperatures and drought were American farmers, who were suffering both physically and financially. Chicken farmers and cattle ranchers in the South and Southwest had the heaviest losses. Fragile broiler chickens may begin to die when temperatures rise above 80DEG, and egg production of laying hens declines above 90DEG. Mrs. Jean Cordle of Shelby County, Tenn., gave ice water to her chickens three times a day, but 25 of her 88 hens died, and their production fell from 30 dozen a week to 12 dozen. Livestock owners are taking their animals to market early because the cattle are losing weight and there is not enough hay to feed them.

"We're hurtin' real bad in Texas," said State Agriculture Commissioner Reagan Brown. The Lone Star State so far has lost more than 1 million broilers and 50,000 breeder hens. Egg production has dropped 5%, and Brown predicted that U.S. chicken prices will go up 15% in three weeks. Cotton yields in some parts of Texas will probably be about 30% less than last year's. In South Texas, ranchers burned expensive propane gas to sear the needles off prickly pear cactus so that cattle could eat and suck water from the plants.

To show his concern, President Jimmy Carter detoured from a fund-raising trip to Texas and Kentucky to fly to the farm of Mr. and Mrs. Len Range, 40 miles north of Dallas. Their sorghum fields have dropped more than 90% and the Ranges may have suffered a crop loss of $100,000. The President said the Government is trying to do everything it can, adding, "We'll be praying for rain and cooler weather in the future."

In Georgia, state agricultural experts calculated that the total crop loss thus far is about $450 million. Corn, which does not pollinate in triple-digit heat, is hardest hit; but soybeans, hay, fruits and vegetables, tobacco and peanuts are also being badly damaged. Marshall Spray, an Augusta game-bird farmer, has lost more than 25,000 quail since the onset of the heat wave. Said he: "If somebody doesn't help me, I'm out of business."

Arkansas state officials estimate that 25% to 50% of the soybean crop in that state has already been lost, with yields down as much as 64%. Milo or grain sorghum harvests suffered a 30% to 50% loss. Arkansas dairy farmers reported milk production drops of about 20% because of the heat. And despite George Gershwin's famous song, this summertime the fish are not jumping. Jim Malone of Lonoke, Ark., said that 1.3 million gal. of water evaporated daily from his pond once the temperature hit 100DEG. He had to pay $5,000 to pump in fresh water to keep the catfish alive.

Cattlemen in Kansas and Missouri are selling off their herds because of burnt pastures and a shortage of feed. Farther north, the Dakotas and eastern Montana have been enduring a drought for almost a year. In Montana, range lands were devastated, and crop losses were estimated at up to 90%. Worst off: winter and spring wheat, barley, oats and hay.

In the Midwest, however, the heat and drought have had a mixed result. Commodity markets have been on a rollercoaster ride of boom and bust this year. Prices went into a tailspin last January, after the President announced the Soviet grain embargo. But reports of the drought began pushing them up again by the end of June. The market has also been helped by the timing of the Soviet decision to resume buying American grain on the last year of a five-year contract. It was announced last week that the Soviets will make an initial purchase of 100,000 metric tons each of corn and wheat. That, plus an influx of commercial buyers, has pushed farm prices up for almost all commodities. "I don't think you can be bearish on anything," says Howard Fisher, a Chicago Board of Trade broker.

Prices for key commodities, such as corn and soybeans, are now higher than they were before the Soviet embargo. Iowa farmers, who were getting $2.15 per bu. of corn before the embargo, were getting $2.76 at week's end, the highest price in nearly four years. Wheat in central Kansas closed the week at $3.70 per bu., nearly back to the $3.80 price in January. Beef prices, however, will start falling by November because of accelerated slaughtering due to the drought. That will result in somewhat lower beef prices then, but higher ones early next year.

Thus, while Southern farmers are downcast, many of their Midwestern counterparts are happy. The reason: their heavy stocks of wheat or corn in storage are now worth more. Said Maurice Van Nostrand, an official of the giant A.G.R.I. Industries, a cooperative of grain elevator operators: "In the last two weeks, we have been buying three times as much as we did in May. I can't imagine the market being more powerful, even if the Russians were still in it."

Despite the dramatic losses suffered by farmers from Texas to Georgia, the Department of Agriculture last week reported that the drought so far will have only a modest impact on consumer food prices.

Officials predicted that the bad weather would add no more than one-tenth of 1% to the cost of food this year. The important 1.85 billion bu. winter-wheat crop had already matured before the weather turned bad. In addition, the U.S. holds such huge agricultural reserves, like the 1.7 billion bu. of corn and 901 million bu. of wheat from past good harvests, that there is at present no danger of shortages. The recent years of harvest feasts will permit U.S. agriculture as a whole to survive a relatively short period of drought and heat.

With reporting by Barry Hillenbrand

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