Farm Bureau president: Livestock raisers will be hurt the most by the drought

Iowa Farm Bureau President Craig Hill has been traveling throughout the state this summer including a stop in Decorah Monday night to talk at the Winneshiek County Farm Bureau's annual meeting.

Hill says he's seen "extremely variable" conditions in corn fields throughout the state--even in the same counties.  While the latest estimate of this year's corn crop puts the harvest at 141 bushels per acre, Hill tells decorahnews.com the yield could be anywhere from 20 bushels an acre to 200 bushels an acre for individual farmers, depending on how their farms were affected by thunderstorms.

While Hill says this summer's drought will "very adversely affect" farmers, he says 90 percent of Iowa farmers have crop insurance, so that will help them stay in business.  Instead, it's livestock producers that Hill worries about because of the higher cost of feeding their animals.  Hill says there will be sell offs in the size of livestock herds--and that will mean higher meat costs in grocery stores in the future.