Drought in Midwest leaves many farmers praying for rain

The Yankauskases, like other farmers in the region, need more rain. The rain helps the corn grow, and that provides food for the pigs.

"There’s no other occupation where you have to rely on what God is going to give you," said Mike Yankauskas, who with his wife is an active member of St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in rural Knox.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, unusually dry conditions in June stretched from Texas to the Midwest and Northeast. June marked the fourth consecutive drier than normal month for parts of the southern Plains and Midwest, with large areas of worsening drought from eastern Texas to northern Illinois and Indiana.

In an interview with the Northwest Indiana Catholic, newspaper of the Gary Diocese, Yankauskas said that it was too soon to tell just what effect the drought would have on farmers.

"We won’t know until the fall," Mike Yankauskas told the paper following some rain July 20. "Right now the corn is starting to pollinate. If there’s no rain, there’s no yield. We won’t make our goal."

The rainfall that day resulted in 0.4 inch of moisture. He said his crops needed 2 inches of rain each week from July 1 to the end of August. With that 0.4 inch, he said, the average weekly precipitation was 1.3 inches since the start of July.

"And June was not a whole lot better," he added.

Additionally, Starke County has plenty of yellow sandy soil, which does not hold moisture.

Having farmed this land since 1978, Mike Yankauskas owns 50 acres and farms another 220 acres that he rents. He showed corn leaves already turning brown; in those leaves is sugar that is transferred to the seeds. In other cases, proper pollination was not occurring. Pollen was dropping, but because of the poor crop there was no silk from the plant to be fertilized. This season’s heat has damaged the silk found on the corn.

With rainfall at one-third of what it should be, he said, prices for corn go up, because with no one else growing much corn it’s a matter of supply and demand.

"It’s a double-whammy," Mike Yankauskas said, pointing to low corn supply and higher prices.

Feed corn is their largest expense. It usually sells for $2.20 a bushel, but he has seen that price hike to $5.

"We went through hard times before this time," he said, recalling dry seasons and other years when hog prices soared.

The farmer also recalled seasons when he faced bankruptcy and was relying on his creditors to understand.

"We were on the fence for a year, wondering," Mike Yankauskas said. "Once you go through this one time, it just makes you stronger."

"I told the kids, ‘Adversity makes you stronger,’" he said. "When you go through that, it helps you listen to God. You might not get what you want, but you keep on listening."

Katie Yankauskas said they have family and faith backing them up. "If you’ve got that, you’ve got everything," she said.

The parents of three sons, two of whom, Aaron, 19, and Justin, 23, also work on the farm, Mike and Katie Yankauskas are both extraordinary ministers of holy Communion. Mike is also a religious education teacher at the parish and plays guitar for Masses; he has two cousins who are priests, Fathers Peter and David Yankauskas, both currently serving in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

In 2000, in an effort to beat the middleman and make more money on the pork they produce, the family opened its Pork Shop, offering frozen meats. They are one of only two pork producers in Starke County.

"That was our answer to God, who was telling us to ‘try this,’" Mike Yankauskas said.

Unlike other farmers who hold a second job, he farms seven days a week, often 7 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. He and his sons were clearing a parcel for a large, 36-foot-diameter bin to hold 20,000 bushels of corn.