Nearly three months of little or no rain and a sweltering heat wave that produced the state's second hottest July on record have made this a terrible year for local farmers, officials and farmers say.
"It has been one of the worst years ever," said Andrew Thornhill, who leases Silverbrook Farms on Chase Road, Dartmouth, with David Sanders.
He has been farming for almost 10 years and can only recall the drought of 2016 as being a worse year. "2016 was absolutely terrible, but this one is catching up," he said.
Conditions are going to result in a reduced yield and smaller vegetables that aren't at market size, he and other farming officials say.
The weather conditions come on top of the pandemic, which has created additional steps for farmers like everyone else to ensure public health and has driven up the costs for farmers, he said.
Silverbrook has two wells on the property and they are irrigating the crops with well water, Thornhill said. The well water, though, is a poor substitute for the rain. "It needs to come from the sky. It hits (the soil) differently," he said.
Cabbage, tomatoes, corn, peppers and onions are some of the vegetables Thornhill and Sanders grow on the farm, he said.
Some days, the temperature has hit 90 degrees, but in the middle of the fields it is hotter and the soil has become dry from the intense heat, he said.
They are now seeing deer jumping 7-foot fences to eat dried-up crops, a sight usually reserved for the fall, he said.
Karen Schwalbe, executive director of the Southeastern Massachusetts Agricultural Partnership, said the intense heat and the severe lack of rainfall have dried the soil and is hurting farmers as they plant their new crops as well as harvest their current crop. In these conditions, it is hard for a seed to germinate because of the dryness. SEMAP includes farmers in Bristol, Pymouth and Norfolk counties.
"It's rough going out there," she said, explaining farmers having the hardest time are those without irrigation or those who have to pay for town water.
Some cranberry bogs, especially those spots on higher ground, are drying up, she said. She said this will be a good year overall for cranberries, but there won't be the traditional, robust yield.
Massachusetts is in a severe drought across the state because of above normal temperatures in July and August and more than three months of below normal rainfall, the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs said. The state experienced the second hottest July on record last month, according to the state's website.
Southeastern Massachusetts, the Cape and Islands regions are also experiencing conditions 'akin to a ‘flash drought’ — a rapid onset drought with decreased precipitation, above normal temperatures and incoming radiation resulting in abnormally high evapotranspiration all combining to increase fire danger and decrease crop moisture levels, the website said.
The official rainfall numbers from the National Weather Service tell exactly how dry and how hot it has been.
Since July 1, there has only been 0.83 inches of rain based on readings at New Bedford Regional Airport, said Alan Dunham, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
The total rainfall in June was 3.34 inches, but that is deceiving since 2.46 inches of the total fell during a torrential downpour on June 29 and 30, he said.
Precipitation figures out of East Wareham show it was just as dry in neighboring Plymouth County. There were 0.50 inches of rain in July and 0.33 inches of rain in August.
Rochester is something of an abnormally compared to the rest of the region with 1.11 inches of rain in July and 1.65 inches of rain in August, the benefit of a couple of thunderstorms that passed directly overhead, he said.
"There has been no widespread rainfall across the region for the summer," Dunham said.
Traditional rainfall levels at the New Bedford airport are: June, 3.95 inches; July, 3.32 inches; and August, 3.34 inches, he said.
To compensate for a lack of rain, farmers are watering their crops with water from ponds or irrigating them with town water and wells, Schwalbe said.
But there are energy costs associated with pumping the water to the crops and additionally most communities don't have a separate water rate for agricultural purposes as farmers pay the same rate as residential customers, she said.
"Farmers are paying a lot of money to water this year," she said.
The best way to irrigate crops is at the root and with overhead sprinklers and it takes considerable work to move the irrigation pipes off the main line around the fields to water all the crops.
Schwalbe said the cost from this summer's weather won't be known until sometime later when farmers have time to calculate the costs of water, labor and energy and crop loss. Right now, they are too busy harvesting and planting.
She said residents can help by patronizing local farm stands. She said farmers are struggling, but their farms are still producing quality food. "Keep an open mind, adjust your expectations and work with what they have and realize it might not be what you expect," she said.
The pandemic has taught everyone the value farms provide consumers, if there are problems in the food pipeline from the farms to the supermarkets and to the dinner table. "We produce excellent food locally," she said.
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