After a year of extreme floods and severe drought, what is Missouri doing about climate change?

ST. LOUIS– Josh Payne counts back six generations and beyond when he thinks about how long his family have been farmers. But after years of unpredictable weather, including droughts, record-breaking rainfall and flooding in the Show Me State, he’s had to adapt his approach to cultivating the land to accommodate the changing climate.

Managing 300 acres outside of Kansas City, Payne converted his farm more than a decade ago from raising traditional commodity crops like soybeans and corn to a direct-to-farmers’ market model where he raises sheep, cattle and grows specialty crops like chestnut trees.

But recent cycles of heavy rains followed by drought can make it difficult for Payne to grow the grazing crops he needs to support his livestock. “We’re seeing more intense rainfall events, we’re seeing more intense drought situations, which of course then affects everything that we grow because it’s all biologically driven,” Payne says.

Shifting their methods and trying new things has helped Payne adjust in recent years due to the drastic changes in climate, but rising temperatures and uneven precipitation shorten his growing season, forcing him to buy feed he could have grown himself. The losses can be as high as $250 per acre or about $75,000 dollars a year, he says.

In 2022, climate change came home for thousands of people across Missouri, like Payne. Record-breaking rainfall coupled with severe flash flooding destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses in July. Drought grew so severe in October, the Mississippi and Missouri rivers could only support limited, crucial barge traffic and long-submerged wrecks reappeared in the river bottoms. This year of weather extremes has exacted an enormous toll on the state, part of a longer-term trend driven by the changing climate according to scientists. Climate change is a crisis of increasing urgency in the state as Missourians head the polls to elect local and national leaders, yet Missouri has a history of pushing against actions that could mitigate the worst effects.

A piece of driftwood sits along the drought-stricken bed of the Mississippi River near Portageville, Mo. Photo by Brady Dennis/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Missouri’s two candidates for U.S. Senate differ widely on climate change policy, during an election year when most voters are focused on other pressing issues ranging from inflation to abortion to the war in Ukraine.

Republican candidate Eric Schmitt, in his current role as state Attorney General has actively targeted advances in climate change policy by filing or joining a number of lawsuits against climate measures. One lawsuit challenged President Biden’s reinstatement of the EPA’s California Waiver, which allows California to set its own greenhouse gas emissions standards for vehicles – a move that effectively forces automakers to adhere to more strict standards nationwide. The waiver had been removed by President Trump’s administration.

Schmitt has argued that California’s push for emission-free vehicles puts an expensive burden on people in Missouri – who would be forced to buy more expensive cars. A couple months later Schmitt called President Biden’s efforts to direct finance managers to consider climate change in their investment management efforts a “radical climate agenda” in a tweet.

In an email to the NewsHour, Schmitt’s opponent, Democratic candidate Trudy Busch Valentine, criticized Schmitt for spending “so much time and taxpayer dollars pushing frivolous lawsuits … instead of focusing on solving Missouri’s most urgent issues.”

READ MORE: Months after historic floods, St. Louis picks up the pieces

In a debate in September that Schmitt did not attend, Busch Valentine called climate change the greatest threat facing the country. In a statement to the NewsHour, her campaign said “Trudy believes that climate change is a scientific fact and there is an urgent need to both curb climate change by investing in renewable energy, but also prepare our infrastructure to withstand the impact.” Investing in infrastructure to prepare for events like this past summer’s floods, the statement said, is also an opportunity to bring new jobs and industries to Missouri.

The Busch Valentine campaign also told the NewsHour that if she is voted to the U.S. Senate she would support “robust funding for the Disaster Assistance Programs and Emergency Conservation Program under the USDA which assist farmers affected by droughts and other natural disasters,” adding that farmers should be partners in the fight against climate change.

“We must support farmers in updating their production and land use practices to lower carbon emissions,” her campaign noted via email. “We should also be incentivizing farmers to transition to renewable energy sources like solar power which Trudy’s own family farm uses.”

Trudy Busch Valentine (left) differs substantially with her opponent, Attorney General Eric Schmitt (right) over climate change in their race to represent Missouri in the U.S. Senate. Photo by Getty

Schmitt argues that regulations designed to combat climate change will hurt Missouri’s economy. He recently joined a group of 14 Republican attorneys general to investigate major banks to determine if they had denied loans to oil companies in an effort to create climate-friendly portfolios. Schmitt claims the self-imposed banking regulations, inspired by a United Nations initiative, mean farmers and businesses in Missouri might not have access to loans. Schmitt’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment on his positions on climate change.

READ MORE: As ‘flash floods are getting flashier,’ communities worry about aging infrastructure

Yet studies show that not taking action on climate is costly. The EPA estimates that a severe 2012 drought that slowed barge traffic cost the Missouri region more than $275 million. The 2018 national climate assessment, produced by 13 federal agencies predicted that climate change will cost the Midwest region $10 billion in lost productivity alone due to heat related illness and death by 2050. Increased electricity costs and other climate issues will cost billions more, the report estimates.

Still, Missouri has a history of pushing back against climate and environmental action, joining lawsuits challenging EPA policies. In 2016, Missouri and 20 other states challenged the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, which set firm limits on carbon emissions for each state. The state also joined efforts to push back on the EPA’s 2015 Waters of the United States Rule, which sought to clarify what bodies of water fell under federal jurisdiction, and its policy addressing mercury and air toxin standards.

But as Missouri has resisted addressing climate, the rest of the world has felt its effects in 2022 with parts of Europe and China experiencing major droughts and terrifying floods killing at least 1,500 people in Pakistan.

“Increases in extreme precipitation is completely consistent with what we expect to see in a warming world,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Tom Di Liberto told the NewsHour.

The most recent example in Missouri being the historic rain that slammed into parts of St. Louis City and St. Louis County on July 26. That week the excessive amounts of precipitation drenched the area in flash floods, leaving two dead, breaking records and ruining homes.

Families across the St. Louis Metro opened their front doors on July 26 as their family cars sat overcome by water after the area experienced excessive rain for hours, breaking a more than 100-year-old record. Photo by Andrew Schaefer

Some St. Louis residents awoke that morning to their cars floating down the street, while others were startled when their hands splashed in water as they turned over in their beds. Months later, entire neighborhoods and apartment buildings are now considered condemned, and hundreds of communities are down thousands of dollars in repairs or total losses. The impact of several days of flooding reignited calls for not only updated infrastructure but also one that would be able to withstand the effects of climate change.

What happened in July is something that could be a part of our country’s future, according to Di Liberto, a climate scientist for NOAA’s Climate.gov.

“These sorts of increasing risks of there being heavy rainfall extremes is a risk that is likely to increase as we continue to warm our planet,” he said.

In one six hour period alone, nearly eight inches of rain hit the area, which according to the National Weather Service, statistically has a 1 in 1000 chance of occurring in a given year.

READ MORE: Historic rainfall in St. Louis raises questions about flooding and climate change

But excessive rain in Missouri is not the state’s sole concern as it relates to the climate.

“We know that increasing temperatures increases the amount of water that can be evaporated from the soil. So by increasing the temperatures, you can lead to a drying out. So there’s an increased drought risk as well, and that holds true for the plains and also the Midwest,” he explained.

July was concurrently a month of dramatic increases in rain and extreme heat with hotter temperatures Missouri has not seen in a decade. It was also the third month of the year the state experienced warmer than usual temperatures, according to data from the Missouri Climate Center. Drought, Di Liberto notes, is of particular concern to farmers.

How climate change is affecting Missouri’s farmers

Climate uncertainty is a growing issue in Missouri, but it manifests differently depending on the season and the year, says Rob Myers, director of the University of Missouri Center for Regenerative Agriculture .

“In 2019 we had over a million acres that were not able to be planted in Missouri that year at all because it was too wet that spring. For several weeks in a row this summer, it’s been the opposite. It’s been too dry,” Myers said.

To help with some of those extremes, the United States Department of Agriculture awarded the University of Missouri $25 million in September to enable farmers to adopt practices that will help them navigate the effects of an ever changing climate.

The project, set to span five years, aims to help growers by supporting them in raising more resilient crops. That work will include incentive funds, education programs and aiding them in identifying “markets where they can receive either a higher value for their crop or livestock because they’re using what’s called a climate smart practice,” Myers explained.

Myers, who was raised on a farm himself, said the program officially starts this winter with sign-up for incentives next spring and summer. The university works with hundreds of farmers in a typical year, but with the added resources from the USDA, he said they will likely work with even more in hopes that they can help sustain their businesses and lives.

“We have a lot of families in Missouri that have had their family connected to that given farm for over 100 years and you know, that’s emotional for a family if they have to give up that connection to the family farm,” he said.

Most of Missouri is currently abnormally dry, with a sizable portion of the state under extreme drought.

No one knows this better than Josh Payne, as he reflects on the severe drought affecting large swaths of Missouri, including his 300 acres.

“Everything we planted this summer didn’t grow and we thought, ‘okay, well, in the fall we’ll have some more and we can kind of make up for that.’ And because we move our animals, it’s very efficient. We were able to make it through the summer,” Payne said.

But then the fall came, and “it didn’t rain at all either,” which meant no new crops grew, leaving them out the seed for a summer and fall crop. It also meant they lost money, would need to buy hay to feed their livestock and they needed to plan for the colder months.

“We had to almost triple our production so that we can just make it through this winter because nothing grew,” Payne said.

Federal crop insurance protects commodities farmers and pays them a base rate per acre even if their harvest is wiped out, but specialty farmers are currently left without those protections, Payne explains. And crop insurance itself, a product of the 1930s dust bowl era, is threatened by increasing pressure from larger, climate-related crop losses.

These barriers are why Payne believes incentives for farmers are critical as they work to navigate unforeseen changes in weather. Payne wants to see aid available for all types of farmers, and for aid programs to encourage planet friendly farming climate practices.

Though he acknowledged that there are some grants through the USDA that can help farmers like him, he said the overall system can perpetuate “harmful climate practices.”

However, Payne believes that there is some hope for the future of agriculture and its role in saving the planet.

“Farming and general crops, grazing and other things has a really high potential to really play a positive role in global warming,” he said. “Simply planting a cover crop behind corn and soy can really go a long way in cleaning water and sequestering carbon.”

Farmers, Payne told the NewsHour, can be a part of the solution.

“Farmers are really smart people and can if there is reason and incentive to change practices to support for climate change….farmers are totally capable of doing that,” he said.