FREDERICK, Okla. - When Kent Walker walked through his dusty fields one morning this spring, the ominous signs were right there at his feet. His wheat crop - which should have been thick, dark green and thigh high - was thin, brown and barely covered the top of his shoes. It looked like the start of an ugly rerun.
Last year, most of his cotton crop was destroyed by drought. In 2011, almost all his cotton and wheat was stunted or shriveled. Walker sold about a third of his cattle because he didn’t have water and feed. Now, more dry months - compounded by four deadly freezes this spring - threaten once again. And after surveying his fields, white cowboy hat shading his eyes, he sums up his frustration.
“Dadgummit,” he said “… It’s very trying. It tries your patience. It tries your faith. Bottom line: Every day you just have to go out and trust in God that all will be fine … and roll on to the next day.”
Walker’s resilience echoes across the southwest corner of Oklahoma as fears of a third-straight year of drought ripple through this vast prairie, where the dry spell has left visible scars: Ponds that are nearly or totally empty. Dead cedar trees. Sprouting weeds. Fewer cows. Bald pastures that resemble dirt roads instead of lush, green fields.
“You always know that there’s going to be a year when you have a failed crop or some sort of disaster,” Walker said. “Normally you can manage one year, but when you go to two or three years, you’re left questioning your choice of occupation. It can set you back on your heels.”
The drought that ravaged large sections of the Midwest and Plains is over, disappearing this spring as heavy rains and floods swamped fields with mud in many areas. But some farmers and ranchers in parts of the West and the Plains, including southwest Oklahoma, are pondering the prospect of another year of a desert-like landscape and a disappointing harvest.
For some, this year may be a tipping point, said Mark Svoboda of the National Drought Mitigation Center. “A drought really tests your coping capacity,” he said. “You either adapt or you sell out and move on. …. If you’re going on year three - those places that are set up best, they’re going to survive it - and the others won’t.”
Two years of heat and far too little rain already have drained Oklahoma agriculture of more than $1.1 billion in direct losses, according to Oklahoma State University. In that time, farmers and ranchers sold nearly 1 in 5 of their cattle as ponds and creeks dried up and feed became scarce.
It’s a scenario Oklahomans know only too well and dread - parched earth, blowing dust, burned crops. During the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s, boiling dark masses of dirt, some thousands of feet high, rolled along, blotting out the sun. In the 1950s, there was another devastating dry spell.
This time around, it has rained, just not enough.
Keeff Felty, a fourth-generation farmer in Altus, hasn’t been able to grow cotton the past two years. “It’s getting old. It’s really getting old not being able to harvest anything,” he said.
Crop insurance is a safety net - and a salvation - for many farmers. “I don’t knowanyone who could have stood the last two years without it,” Felty said. But it doesn’t cover the full costs of replacement or measure how a disaster in the fields ripples down Main Street.
Here in Tillman County - a land of big skies, postcard-sized Western silver belt buckles and relatively few people (nine per square mile) - everyone has a stake in the weather. It’s more than farmers and ranchers who suffer from drought.
It’s the cotton-gin workers with little or nothing to do. The truckers who have less grain to haul. The gas-station owner who sells less fuel. The tractor dealer who watches his inventory sit on the lot. The banker who makes fewer loans, resulting in less interest. The merchants who cut back on 4-H donations. Thehundreds of wheat harvesters who travel here each summer - and now may now cut their stay short.
And on and on until it reaches the door of the Subway shop owned by Jim Ard, who can measure the number of foot-long sandwiches he sells by how wet or dry it is in any planting season.
But drought’s not always obvious in this county 20 miles north of the Texas border. Drive along and you’ll see green horizons, but a few inches below, the soil is dry and hard as concrete, said Aaron Henson, the county’s agriculture extension agent. If the drought ended tomorrow, he said, it would take another three to five years for the pastures to fully recover.
Henson said that in the past two years, ranchers in the county - which endured 101 days of 100-degree-plus weather in 2011 - have sold or moved more than half their cattle to greener pastures, elsewhere in Oklahoma or out of state.
The city manager has been warily watching two lakesthat supply Frederick’s water; they’re now at 37 percent of capacity.
And Ard, the local merchant, has been thinking about the future of Frederick, where the population, nearly 4,000, has shrunk by about 15 percent since 2000.
“This town could dry up,” he said.
It’s a legitimate concern, said Ryan McMullen, state director of U.S. Department of Agriculture rural development. In some counties north of here, the oil and gas boom has helped offset drought-related losses. But in towns solely reliant on agriculture, the outlook is dire.
“Everybody has watched this population decline for generations,” he said. “There has been a long-term sense of despair, but it now feels this latest drought might be too much to overcome. That’s saying a lot for communities that have maintained a population since the Dust Bowl. These are tough, salt-of-theearth folks that don’t call it quits easily.”
Front Section, Pages 4 on 05/05/2013