News

Farmer has had enough winter

The most common answer to questions about winter is that its welcome is wearing thin. Platte County, Missouri farmer Hal Swaney, who farms near the Kansas City Airport, tells Brownfield his cattle have problems with the big swings in temperature.

“One day it’s muddy and the next day it’s frozen, the cows are having trouble getting around walking,” Swaney told Brownfield Ag News, “and then the days that it’s easy for them to walk I can’t get to them to feed them.”

The wet harvest left deep ruts that Swaney says he’ll have to deal with before planting. There’s also fall fieldwork that he and others must catch up on.

“A good many of us are way behind on fertilizer applications; we didn’t get any anhydrous on,” said Swaney. “And the system is not such that everybody can get anhydrous the same day.”

Swaney talked to Brownfield at a Missouri Farm Bureau Legislative event in Jefferson City.