As if commodity markets needed any more drama this year, this year’s Atlantic hurricane season could be the seventh-consecutive with above-average activity, raising risks for U.S. grain exports as well as oil production and refining capacity.
Significant disruptions for U.S. commodities resulting from hurricanes are more the exception than the rule, but tight global stocks, high prices and geopolitical conflicts could amplify any storm impacts that surface this year.
Read MoreSouth Louisiana is no stranger to hurricanes, but after Hurricane Ida’s destruction last year—16 years to the day since Katrina hit—preparation is more important than ever as the 2022 Atlantic season begins.
Read MoreHurricane season is once again upon us, and the LSU AgCenter has recommendations to mitigate potential damage and losses to yards, homes and pets as well as tips for keeping food and cleaning supplies on hand.
While not as active as the historic season of 2020, 2021 saw 21 named storms — including seven hurricanes, four of which were major. One of these, Ida, was a Category 4 storm second only to Katrina in its damage to Louisiana.
This year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is predicting an above-average season with the potential of 14 to 21 named storms, six to 10 hurricanes and three to six major hurricanes. AgCenter specialists have some guidance for staying prepared.
Read MoreAnother grueling summer disaster season is arriving, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency is under intense pressure even as its portfolio balloons, it pleads for more money from Congress, and criticism comes on several fronts.
The agency manages more than 300 disaster declarations a year, a dramatic increase from the average of 108 disasters it responded to just a decade ago. For 2022, the disaster outlook is daunting.
Read MoreLouisiana already has 1 million gallons of fuel available if needed for its hurricane response efforts. State lawmakers are considering setting aside another 4 million gallons to address critical shortages in the wake of major storms.
Rep. Daryl Deshotel, R-Hessmer, has proposed the Louisiana Strategic Fuel Reserve in House Bill 1057. It calls for the state to spend $25 million to build three storage tanks at the Central Louisiana Regional Port in Alexandria, according to the bill’s fiscal note. Two tanks would hold gasoline and diesel, and the third would contain ethanol for blending fuels.
Read MorePhysical loss loans can help producers repair or replace damaged or destroyed physical property essential to the success of the agricultural operation, including livestock losses. Examples of property commonly affected include essential farm buildings, fixtures to real estate, equipment, livestock, perennial crops, fruit and nut bearing trees and harvested or stored crops and hay.
Read MoreThe U.S. Drought Monitor released Thursday contained more bad news for ranchers and all of agriculture. More than 61% of the contiguous US is in some classification of drought.
Read MoreFreezing temperatures can be detrimental to wheat. Temperatures, depending on where you are in the state, beginning this weekend and into next week (February 4-12) are projected to dip into the mid to low 20s. Wheat that hasn’t jointed should be ok except for some foliar injury. This injury is usually superficial, and the plants should recover
Read MoreOne of the major inflationary forces of 2021 has been the weather.
Wild weather around the world wreaked havoc on markets for raw materials, lifting prices for everything from electricity and heat to houses and breakfast cereal.
Read MoreThis week's U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM) report finds continued deterioration in drought-like conditions across areas of the Mid-Atlantic (Virginia, North Carolina) and the Southeast (South Carolina, Georgia) in response to below-normal precipitation (past 30- to 90-day period), declining soil moisture and streamflow levels.
Also, the drought conditions expanded and intensified on the map in areas of the South including Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas as well as in the Southern Plains of Oklahoma, where overall warm and dry conditions have prevailed during the past 30- to 120-day period, according to the Drought Monitor map.
Read MoreHurricane Ida ravaged Louisiana agriculture this fall. The hurricane brought as much as two feet of rain in some areas, as producers grappled with losses and aftermath.
"My community took a hell of a beating," Ashly Pitre, president of LaFourche Parish Cattleman's Association, told "This Week in Louisiana Agriculture."
Cattle were stranded for days, and producers worked around the clock to get to their livestock and move them to safety. But even then, the Hurricane left its mark, as This Week in Louisiana Agriculture covered it first-hand this year.
Read MoreA few weeks of dry weather are giving St. Mary sugar cane farmers a break, although it's a working break.
After what experts called a great 2020 cane crop, farmers have worried their way through a hard freeze in February, pushed machinery through mud created by months of heavy rain and watched with trepidation while tropical weather approached.
Sky darkens, rain pours, wind blows and a hurricane roars, leaving in its wake mangled buildings, roofless grain bins, and uprooted foundation pillars. Barns, shops, equipment—gone. In 2020, Brandon Vail’s farm life was rolled by devastation on a grand scale. Pile on a truck accident from which he crawled from a crushed tin can to survive by a wafer-thin margin—and the pill of 2020 is all the more bitter.
Yet, mettle takes the day. Knocked to the mat in 2020, Vail found his feet, emblematic of the resilience of Louisiana farmers forced to reckon with another wrecking ball. Farming just 20 miles from the Gulf of Mexico in the teeth of hurricane country, battling saltwater creep and mosquito plagues, Vail is pushing back with grit against the elements. He will rebuild. “I belong here on this dirt,” he says. “I belong.”
Read MoreMore than one year after Hurricane Laura caused more than $1.6-billion in damage to the state’s agriculture industry, some farmers say assistance has been inadequate.
“It’s very slow to get any type of aid in your pocket,” said farmer Brandon Vail. “It's not a cheap deal to rebuild and rebuilding is going to take several years.”
Read MoreThe U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is known for damming rivers and building levees to keep waterways at bay. But a new initiative seeks natural flood control solutions as climate change brings increasingly frequent and severe weather events that test the limits of concrete and steel.
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