Had a conversation with a farmer last weekend that messed with my head

I was out near Modesto helping a buddy clean up some old equipment, and this guy rolled up in a beat up Ford. He told me he's been farming the same 40 acres for 30 years and this season his soil temp hit 110 degrees in July for the first time ever. He said he's seeing crops fail that never did before and he's thinking about selling. It hit different because he wasn't some activist, just a regular dude watching his land change under him. Anybody else ever had a random chat with someone that just made the whole climate thing feel way too real?

3 comments

3 Comments

linda1141mo ago

Nah, I'm gonna push back on this. "His soil temp hit 110 degrees" is just one measurement from one random guy, and farmers have been saying the same stuff about weather for a hundred years. People forget that farming has always been a gamble and every generation thinks things are getting worse. He might sell and some other guy will buy it and make it work just fine.

murphy.mason1mo ago

Can't @linda114, but my uncle said the same thing about his tomatoes last summer and then a groundhog ate half his crop anyway?

rubyk261mo ago

Honestly, my neighbor tried that soil temp trick and ended up with a family of raccoons living under his deck.