“The drought comes at a time when production costs are up because of rising prices for fuel, fertilizer, seed, pesticides, and other inputs,” said Forrestal, who works on the kill floor at Tyson Foods, a pork processor in Perry, Iowa.

In response to these conditions, the socialist candidates have called for “government-funded affordable credit for working farmers and price supports to cover their production costs,” Forrestal said. “We also demand protection for working farmers who suffer losses from drought and floods.”

Drought conditions have hit the Great Plains the hardest from North Dakota to Nebraska and Texas. Many farmers have faced drought conditions for six years.

“I’ll be using the highest-price diesel I’ve ever bought in my life to combine the lowest-producing corn I’ve ever produced,” Klint Cork, who grows corn and soybeans in western Iowa, told the Des Moines Register. He said in his area it rained less than an inch in May, June, and July. Parts of his farm may produce just 30 bushels an acre of corn at harvest time. Iowa’s average corn yield this year is expected to be 173 bushels an acre.

While much-needed rain finally came, high fuel costs are eating into farmers’ bottom line. At the Iowa State Fair, Bob Beckman, a dairy farmer in West Burlington, Iowa, told Forrestal he is paying $2,000 a month for fuel, almost double what he had been paying. Beckman has 50 cows on his 300-acre farm.

The farmers most affected are in an area stretching from south-central North Dakota to central South Dakota. A U.S. Agriculture Department official said the drought, which began in 1999, is the third worst on record. The other two came in the 1930s and 1950s.

“Some ranchers have been forced to sell their entire herds, and others are either moving their cattle to greener pastures or buying more already-costly feed. Hundreds of acres of grasslands have been blackened by fires sparked by lightning or farm equipment,” according to an Associated Press report. Conditions are so bad that farmers in North Dakota are carrying fire extinguishers while working to cut down on grass fires.

“This is not primarily a natural disaster—it’s a capitalist disaster,” Forrestal told farmers he spoke with. “The profit system concentrates wealth in the hands of capitalist farmers and companies, while driving small farmers to the brink. And the policies of the twin capitalist parties, the Democrats and Republicans, are designed to benefit the rich.”

“The labor movement needs to champion demands in support of farmers and build an alliance of working people to fight for our common interests,” he said. “Revolutionary Cuba, where working farmers are guaranteed they’ll never lose their land, is an example of what a workers and farmers government can accomplish. That’s what we need here.”
 
 
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