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North Central IL | A couple posts below got me think about how could someone figure out how many acres could be lost or effected by the flooding Iowa.
Many are comparing this event to 1993, when there was widespread flooding across much of Iowa and surrounding states. Below is my attempt at an estimation.
I used USDA/NASS data for the Northwest Iowa reporting district. I looked the planted and harvested acres for 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 and 1995. I compared the 2 year before and after 1993 to 1993.
At that time there was an average difference of 2.65% between planted and harvested acres, or and average planted acres of 1,855,250 vs. 1,806,000 harvested acres. Note: in the more recent years
that difference has grown to 5.5 to 6%. and a planted acre of just over 2,000,000 acres.
In 1993 the difference was 13.8%, meaning significantly more acres are NOT harvested in 1993 than one would have expected in normal years.
Projecting forward to this year: if we use 13.8% as the difference between planted and harvested acres to account for the flooding so far in 2024, and subtract what normal year difference is of 6% we can estimate/guess
that flooding could add an additional 7.8% the the planted/harvested difference. If 2,000,000 acres were planted in NW Iowa in 2024 the lost acre due flooding could be as much as 156,000. or 1,724,000 harvested acres.
Applying the same math to yield, in 1993 NW Iowa saw a 40% decrease in yield across the reporting district, a conservative number for 2024 could be 20% The average yield for this area in recent years is about 205 bu/ac.
A 20% reduction would give a average yield of 162.2, applying that across 1,724,000 would be a production loss of 70,340,000 bu.
Now remembering that the event is not just in Northwest Iowa, it stretchers from eastern South Dakota across southern Minnesota, most of the northern third of Iowa and into Southwest Wisconsin. I could account for 200,000 acres lost and yield reduction across the remaining crop as much 10 to 15%.
This is my best guess, they appear to be a little aggressive, what do you all think?
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How many acres in NW Iowa could be lost to recent flooding
