MERCER COUNTY — Local crops are OK for the moment, but without some significant rain in the next two weeks, that will change, according to Luke Vogel, executive director of Mercer County’s USDA Farm Services Agency.

Word-of-mouth from area farmers is that the crops – primarily corn, soybeans and alfalfa – are still growing on track, thanks in large part to a warm and wet spring. Many farmers got an earlier-than-usual start on planting and there was enough moisture to prevent the agricultural disaster that farmers in the Midwest are facing, Vogel said.

Sunny skies and hot weather for days on end may be pleasing for some, but not if “you want your food to be cheap,” said Jeff McFarland, a New Wilmington dairy farmer who also plants 2,200 acres of corn, soy and alfalfa.

McFarland said Wednesday that a bushel of corn is selling for $7.17. In an average year, a bushel usually nets about $4.25, he said. That translates into higher prices – almost immediately – at the grocery store, he said. “Corn is in demand and grocers will respond to that,” he said.

In a complex scenario that involves both chemistry and futures trading, McFarland explained that the drought, for now, is a boon to local farmers whose crops are in good shape. Speculators at the Chicago Mercantile generally set the prices each Wednesday and he estimates corn may peak as high as $8 a bushel. Corn crops are sold for ethanol production and other industrial uses, as well used to feed livestock, he said. It costs, on average, about $300 to plant an acre of corn.

McFarland, 46, who plants 1,200 acres of corn said he plans to sell about 45 percent of his crop, but he wants to wait before he “locks in” until he thinks the price will peak. The danger with farmers doing that, he said, is if the drought continues and local crops start to wither, the farmers may not be able to provide the corn they have promised.

While farming is generally a weather-dependent business, it’s also based in large part on understanding how the chemistry of the product, either the corn or the milk, changes with the weather. McFarland’s dairy cows produce less milk in the hot, dry weather, he said, and that milk contains less butterfat. Consequently, he said, prices will soon rise on things like butter and cream.

Milk prices are significantly lower this year than last, he said. He’s selling milk for $17 per 100 pounds, about $1.50 less than it costs him to produce it. Last year, it was $28, he said. The lack of rain plays into the milk production because the alfalfa the cows eat has a higher nitrate content and affects the quality of the milk.

“It gets pretty complicated, and the average person just driving by the farm doesn’t really know all that goes into it,” he said. McFarland’s farm, Lakeland Dairy, has been in his family for more than 200 years and he said he rarely sees “an average year.”  

“It seems like one extreme or the other,” he said.

Vogel, who heads the agency that implements the federal Farm Bill, said if drought conditions worsen to the point that crops are lost or milk production goes down, subsidies are available to help farmers get by “day to day.”

He said his office is about two years behind on dealing with crop disasters. “We have to wait and see what happens, sort of see how bad it gets and take it from there. We are at a very critical stage right now,” Vogel said. However, he said, soybean crops are among the best he’s ever seen, as are grain crops.

Vogel, who has a beef cattle farm, said he hasn’t heard of anyone having difficulty with livestock due to a low water supply, but that is something that bears watching. “If wells went dry, farmers could end up hand-carrying water to the animals,” he said.

Some showers Sunday brought about 0.2 inch of rain, McFarland said, and he feels confident more rain is headed this way. “We just always somehow seem to get what we need. Counties to the south of us are drier, but we are getting by.”

It’s a far different scenario than last summer, which was far wetter. “It rained almost every day,” McFarland said.

Workers selling corn, tomatoes, peaches and melons, mostly between Mercer and Greenville, said business has been steady. Joe Lang, who works for Seivers farm in Grove City, said their crops were ready early and business is always good at the market in the middle of Mercer.

Sweet corn there, as at most other farm markets, is $5 a dozen.