No one knows better than Texas farmers and ranchers how damaging drought can be.

Even a drought of short duration — just during one growing season, for instance — can knock a hole in farm income and, in some cases, put the farmstead in jeopardy.

Longer dry spells, such as the one currently going on across much of the Southwest, can wipe out years of profitability and may result in losing a farm or ranch.

Regardless of the advances in technology — more efficient irrigation systems, improved production methods, and varieties that perform better under dry conditions — crops won’t grow without water. When drought settles in for several years, farm income suffers, and the shock waves of lost revenue rip across communities, counties, even regions.

Prolonged drought, says Travis Miller, interim associate director-state operations for Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service in College Station, has caused mass migrations as residents of drought-stricken areas looked elsewhere to find better places to make their living.

“The ‘30s Dust Bowl resulted in the migration of 3.5 million people from the Great Plains,” he said during the opening session of the Texas Plant Protection Association’s 26th annual conference. “It centered on Texas and Oklahoma, but impacted farmers north to Kansas and east through Missouri, with a large number moving to California.”

And not all of those displaced persons came off farms and ranches. “Only 43 percent were estimated to be agricultural workers,” he says. “More than a third were white collar workers. Some regions estimated topsoil loss at 75 percent, rendering high quality agricultural lands worthless for crop production.”

Losing that agriculture base also ripped the fabric of rural communities and the towns that supported them.

Source - http://southwestfarmpress.com/