A fact of life in Nebraska is that sooner or later, the state will face the return of drought. It’s a familiar part of the climatic cycle in our part of the country.
Nebraska fortunately has had a generally drought-free period in recent years, moving beyond the brutally parched conditions of 2012. That year, groundwater levels shrank significantly in parts of the state, and Lake McConaughy fell to only 54 percent full.
This year, drought has returned just to our north, with severe conditions afflicting much of the Dakotas and Montana.
“Only 9 percent of South Dakota is not suffering from drought,” U.S. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said during a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing last week.
“I don’t know how it can get much worse for ranchers out there,” U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., said during the same hearing. “If they are making it, they are making it day to day right now, and they don’t know how they are going to make it to the winter.”
Recent cattle sales in those drought-stricken states have skyrocketed.
In response, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has authorized emergency grazing on Conservation Reserve Program lands set aside for ecological protection.
USDA also granted permission for CRP landowners within 150 miles of drought-affected counties to donate hay from those lands to farmers in the affected area. This means hay donations are allowed from producers throughout Nebraska’s Sand Hills.
At present, drought conditions have not extended south into Nebraska. Perhaps they won’t.
Still, a survey of nearly 5,000 wells statewide by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Conservation and Survey Division found that water stress returned in 2016 to some areas of central and western Nebraska. And last week the National Drought Mitigation Center at UNL classified the Sand Hills and south-central Nebraska as experiencing abnormally dry conditions.
Whatever lies ahead, Nebraskans can always benefit by being prepared for the return of drought, whether the dire conditions strike only part of the state or its entirety. That proactive mindset can help a cattle or row-crop producer in managing an agricultural operation, as well as helping a business or household in handling its water use.
The cycle, sooner or later, is bound to turn.
