{"id":24026,"date":"2015-05-29T13:46:47","date_gmt":"2015-05-29T18:46:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=24026"},"modified":"2015-05-29T13:46:47","modified_gmt":"2015-05-29T18:46:47","slug":"oklahoma-farmers-and-ranchers-flooded-with-new-problems-as-drought-ends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2015\/05\/29\/oklahoma-farmers-and-ranchers-flooded-with-new-problems-as-drought-ends\/","title":{"rendered":"Oklahoma Farmers and Ranchers Flooded With New Problems As Drought Ends"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/p>\n

U.S. Drought Monitor<\/p>\n

The latest update of the U.S. Drought Monitor.<\/p>\n<\/div>

Given the choice between the crippling drought of the past nearly 5 years and the ongoing threat of flooding Oklahoma farmers and ranchers are currently dealing with, Chris Kirby with the Oklahoma Wheat Commission says she’ll take the rain every time.<\/p>

“I’ve heard some people say, ‘well, I don’t want to complain about the rain, because the last time I did, it quit raining for six years,” Kirby tells StateImpact.<\/p>

But flooding has becoming a big problem for the agriculture industry, and, as\u00a0The Oklahoman<\/em>‘s Silas Allen reports<\/a>, is cutting into what was expected to be a much better wheat crop compared to the past few years:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve gone from one extreme to the other,\u201d said Charlie Swanson, a farmer near Roosevelt, about 20 miles east and 17 miles north of Altus.<\/p>

… About 30 days ago, farmers in the area were looking forward to above-average wheat yields, he said. But hail and floods have damaged some crops, leaving the area with only about 70 percent of what it expected, making it a below-average year, he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>

Whether it’s one of the worst droughts on record, or the rainiest month in state history, wheat farmers in Oklahoma just can’t catch a break. Swanson does tell the paper it should be a great year for cotton, with all the farm ponds now full and plenty of soil moisture.<\/p>

Livestock producers are also facing problems they haven’t had to deal with in a very long time, like cattle being stranded because of flooding.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, a river in Muskogee County rose out of its banks, flooding a ranch and leaving 100 cows stranded. On Wednesday morning, Oklahoma National Guard soldiers dropped 14 bales of hay and about 700 pounds of dry feed from a CH-47 Chinook helicopter, Oklahoma National Guard spokesman Maj. Geoff Legler said.<\/p>

Legler, who participated in the drop, said it isn\u2019t the first time National Guard soldiers have come to the aid of stranded livestock.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Flooding has becoming a big problem for the agriculture industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":24035,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[491],"tags":[313,423,427,422],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24026"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24026"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24045,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24026\/revisions\/24045"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}