When organic dairy farmer Mike Philbrick looks out at his pasture, what he should see is green, lush, healthy grass. But what is actually there is brown, dry, brittle grass that looks like it wouldn’t make good grazing for any animal, much less his glossy herd of dairy cows.
It’s a hard reality for Philbrick, who has been waiting for what feels like months for rain to fall. He and his herd depend on the hay from his fields to get them through the winter, but after a pretty good first cutting at the beginning of the summer and a mediocre second cutting in the middle of the summer, the important third crop of hay is withered, short and dry. That’s bad news for Philbrick and for his cows.
“It’s just a miserable mess,” he said. “The third crop’s not doing a blooming thing … I rely on my pasture to actually make my income.”
The dry spell Philbrick is facing is not as widespread as last summer’s drought. According to the Aug. 31 drought data released by the National Drought Mitigation Center, the western portion of Maine has seen normal rain conditions. A swathe of abnormally dry terrain runs through the center of the state, from York County in the south to most of Aroostook County in the north. But eastern Maine, from the southern midcoast to Washington County, is once again experiencing a drought. Affected farmers like Philbrick, who scrambled to survive last summer’s dry conditions, had not expected to have to do it twice. He is hoping he will get through the dry spell, so to speak, without needing to buy hay. But it’s been a challenge.
“People need to know that things are really messed up,” he said. “If I hear another person complain about their friggin’ lawn being brown, I’m going to smack them upside the head.”
Rick Kersbergen, a sustainable dairy and forage systems expert with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, said that not all hay farmers in the state are having a tough time. Just like last year, some parts of the state have gotten enough rain while others are parched and dry. Farmers and scientists have said that unpredictable weather patterns seem to have become the new normal and Mainers are having to grapple with more climate variation than ever before.
“We’re seeing a lot of variation,” Kersbergen said. “Certain regions this year have gotten adequate rainfall, while some areas haven’t.”
For the areas affected by the drought, the difficult conditions in their fields could have long term consequences. Dairy is an industry that already is under pressure, as farmers receive lower prices for their milk yet pay more in costs to produce that milk. Thirty years ago, there were close to 1,000 dairy farms in Maine. That number has dropped by 75 percent, as fewer than 250 wholesale dairy farms are left.
“It’s a struggle,” Kersbergen said, adding that dairy farms have an outsized influence on the rest of the state’s agriculture scene. “I think most people in agriculture look at dairy farming as a linchpin. Dairy farmers spend a lot of money. Their support of the agricultural industry in the state is critical.”
If those farmers run out of hay in the winter or spring because of the drought, everyone loses. Fields of feed corn also are looking parched in parts of the state, he said.
“Farmers will have to do inventory and see how much feed they have, see if they have enough for the year,” Kersbergen said. “And they’ll have to make adjustments, whether that’s buying feed from out of state or selling cows. There’s nothing worse than having 100 head of dairy cattle in April without feed. That’s a situation we don’t want anybody to be in.”
Farmer Marshall Daly, also of Knox, is also struggling with the effects of the drought on his hay fields, though in a slightly different way than Philbrick. Daly doesn’t have cows. He grows and sells hay to people with horses, alpacas and other animals, and hauls a large amount of what he grows to customers in the Boston area. This summer, Daly is estimating he will come up short by about 50,000 bales, or about half of what he normally grows. That’s how dry it has been on his fields. The farmer said that the first cutting is what pays his bills, and if he’s actually going to get ahead a little, it will happen with his third cut. But not this year.
“The second and third cutting are just non-existent. It’s just not there,” he said. “Usually we deal with what we deal with, but it’s been pretty not good for two years in a row. We pieced together our customer orders for last winter. It’s going to be hard to do it two years in a row.”
According to Daly, his hay fields are in worse shape than they were last year. It’s been depressing this summer, he said, to be on his hilltop farm and look out over a wide sweep of land, watching as the rain came down on other places, but never his.
“I think we’ll still be here next year, but we can’t do it a third year,” he said. “Farmers can complain about anything. Complain about too wet, complain about too dry. But this — there’s nothing there. The fields are brown and stunted. The grass and the hayfields are crispy. It’s supposed to be green and lush and growing, but it’s just crispy to the touch.”