Broken harvest

Robust-willed, far-sighted and unbiased, the Midwestern farmer has long lived as much as his depiction in Grant Wood’s famous painting “American Gothic,” portraying a father and daughter posed with a pitchfork in front of a house full with Gothic window. The 1930 portray was rooted, like Wood himself, in Iowa values and steeped in reverence for many who plow the plain.

That was then, this is now. Right now’s farm households require more than their own stoicism to endure at the moment’s multifaceted struggles. Of all of the issues that threaten those who plow the fields of America — dwindling commodity costs, a painful commerce conflict — the most enduring is the change to the panorama itself. Extreme weather events have rocked the American Midwest in recent times and hit notably onerous in 2019, drowning agricultural acreage almost the dimensions of South Carolina and washing away the topsoil that makes land fertile.

When “American Gothic” was painted, farm families had yet to experience the hardships of the Mud Bowl. Farming practices in the 1930s had to adapt to mitigate the consequences of devastating weather events. In 2019 and beyond, farmers will need to adjust their relationship with the land to survive the onslaught of “extreme weather” that scientists say will improve in frequency and influence. If Wood have been to paint his “Gothic” household right now, the background can be decidedly more apocalyptic.

Storm-ravaged cornfields are dotted with fish trapped by receding floodwaters close to Hastings, Neb.; and water inundates a coal-fired energy plant close to Nebraska City, Neb.

Widespread devastation in Rock Port, Mo., consists of destroyed roads, cracked earth and flooded generational farms like the one belonging to Rick Oswald.

Farmers throughout America are on the lookout for more sustainable farming methods to fight the weather ravaging their livelihoods.

Article initially revealed on POLITICO Magazine

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