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Farmer sees dramatic change in weather during tenure

A Missouri farmer has growing concerns about weather patterns in his area.

“I want normal like it was when I was a kid with an inch rain every Saturday night (laughter).”

Veteran farmer Richard Oswald said weather swings have become a lot more dramatic in his time farming. Oswald, who farms in the far northwest corner of Missouri near the Missouri River, said he relocated after being flooded in 2019.

“[I] was trying to establish a new yard and it’s kind of on a hillside and I’d get seed on it and it would look like rain and I’d say ‘well that’s good, it’s going to make the grass grow’,” he said. “But then we’d get five inches of rain and I’d have to go back out and smooth up and put seed on again.”

But Oswald said the extreme spring rains seem to turn off and change into drought conditions almost overnight.

“That dryline that’s always been out near the Nebraska panhandle is expected to shift or has shifted 100 miles further east,” he said. “That puts us hear in Northwest Missouri, right here on the Missouri River, really close to the edge of dry country.”

Despite the weather swings, Oswald said he was able to avoid having to replant this year.