Damage from Drought and Drought-Fueled Wildfires in Texas Exceeds $10billion and Mounting
In comparison, drought cost Texas agriculture $13.1 billion in the previous 13 years, an average of about $1 billion per year (peaking at a record annual loss of $4.1 billion in 2006 season.)
Dust Bowl Texas. Frame grab from video report by Agrilife Today
Disaster Calendar 2011 – August 20 Entry
[August 20, 2011] Mass die-offs resulting from human impact and the planetary response to the anthropogenic assault could occur by early 2016. SYMBOLIC COUNTDOWN: 1,670 Days Left to the ‘Worst Day’ in Human History
- Texas, USA. Field surveys show livestock losses of $2.1 billion and crop losses of $3.1 billion in Texas from November 2010 to August 1, according to Texas A&M University’s Texas AgriLife Extension Service.
- “The drought of 2011 will have a lasting impact on Texas agriculture,” said Dr. Travis Miller, AgriLife Extension agronomist and a member of the Governor’s Drought Preparedness Council.
- “This drought is ongoing,” said Dr. David Anderson, AgriLife Extension livestock economist. “Further losses will continue if rainfall does not come soon to establish this year’s winter wheat crop and wheat grazing.”
- “Wheat yields were down from a five-year average of 30 bushels to 26 bushels per acre and abandonment was up,” he said. “Given this year’s plantings of 5.7 million acres, we would have harvested 2.8 million in a normal year. In 2011, harvested acreage is estimated at only 2 million acres, down 800,000 acres. The combination of yield losses on harvested acres and higher abandonment put Texas wheat-for-grain losses at $243 million.”
- Texas corn production is down by about 30 percent in 2011.
- “The drought began for much of the state in September 2010,” Miller said.
Texas Drought: Cracks are deepening. Frame grab from video report by Agrilife Today
- The Losses by Commodity:–
- Livestock: $2.06 billion (includes $1.2 billion previously reported in May);
- Lost hay production value: $750 million;
- Cotton: $1.8 billion;
- Corn: $327 million;
- Wheat: $243 million;
- Sorghum: $63 million.
- A list of economic drought losses from 1998 through 2010 – compiled by AgriLife Extension:
- 2011– $5.2 billion [losses caused by drought-fueled wildfires NOT included]
- 2009 – $3.6 billion
- 2008 – $1.4 billion
- 2006 – $4.1 billion
- 2002 – $316 million
- 2000 – $1.1 billion
- 1999 – $223 million
- 1998 – $2.4 billion
- [Total of $18.34billion excluding 2011 losses from drought-fueled wildfires; 14-year average annual loss: $1.31billion, calculated between 1998 and August 1, 2011]
- FIRE-EARTH estimates that the additional losses caused by drought-fueled wildfires in Texas, which have consumed 5,400 square miles [3,456,000 acres] of grazing land and destroyed thousands of structures in the past 10 months, amount to about $5 billion, making a tally of about $10billion.
Other Global Disasters
- Thailand. The govt has declared 28 of Thailand’s 76 provinces disaster areas because of flooding. The deluge has so far affected about a million people, a report said.
- Arizona, USA. USDA has declared five Arizona counties as natural disaster areas due to the ongoing drought. The disaster areas are Apache, Cochise, Graham, Greenlee and Santa Cruz counties, reports said.
Fire Earth 