Chad Korth’s Nebraska farm mostly was unscathed from the catastrophic floods that inundated nearby fields thanks to being positioned atop a hill. But as the waters recede, he’s not expecting to be spared the financial blow that’s hitting the region.
After bulging waters from the Elkhorn River took out bridges and roads, Korth — a third-generation farmer who raises corn, soybeans and cattle with his father in Meadow Grove — said he’ll have to chart out new courses to go buy equipment. Meanwhile, local corn prices have declined because the flooding forced Valero Energy Corp. to idle its 135 million-gallons-a-year ethanol plant in Albion. Annual demand from the mill is usually about 47 million bushels of corn.
Already suffering from low crop prices and the U.S.-China trade war, nature has delivered yet another blow to the beleaguered American farmer. Growers in the heartland this year have seen arctic cold blasts, been blanketed by snow and just in the last week were ravaged by floods. Archer-Daniels-Midland Co., one of the world’s biggest agribusinesses, said March 25 that it expects weather disruptions to have a negative pretax operating profit impact of $50 million to $60 million for the first quarter.