Farmers trying to cope with drought - 13 WTHR Indianapolis

On Sunday, Hali Green spent the morning prepping her calf for the show ring at the Johnson County Fair.

"This is my sixth year," said Green.

This year, 4-H is teaching the 16-year-old how detrimental the weather can be for farmers.

"I was supposed to show three but I lost two steer because of the heat" Green said.

From tending to and feeding livestock to crops in the field, Indiana farmers are taking a hard hit from the heat and the drought. No one knows that better than Steve Duke.

"It's effecting every aspect of income both livestock and grains," he said.

Duke raises cattle and farms 2400 acres in Johnson County. The dry conditions have all but claimed his corn crop, "Probably 70-80 percent of my corn I fully expect to have zero to very little yield on them."

With little rain in sight, some farmers say it's more cost effective to just plow over the field than to try to harvest what little crop is here.

"Yeah and that's probably a realistic thing that we will be looking at too," said Duke.

Indiana is the 5th largest corn producer in the country and experts say Hoosier corn farmers could be looking at a one billion dollar loss this year. That will eventually equate to higher food prices at the store.

"Beef prices, pork prices, chicken, everything that consumes grains the prices are eventually go up,"said Duke.

4-H'er Kyle Mathena is showing cattle from his family's farm. He says this has been a tough year.

"The crops are pretty bad and my dad doesn't have crop insurance so he doesn't think he is going to make his money back on it" said Mathena.

Still, Mathena hopes to become a farmer himself with a full understanding of how much of the business is up in the air.