Multimedia Reporting (Utsler)

Knee-high by the Fourth of July? Hardly.

This spring the beautiful for spacious skies turned gray and poured down a malicious amount of precipitation on what would have been amber waves of grain across the Corn Belt. Farms across the Midwest have seen damage from recent ravaging rain, hammering hail storms and ferocious flooding, especially in central and eastern Iowa. As a major producer of corn and soybeans, a crop deficiency will certainly have some effects across the country in grocery stores, gas pumps and anywhere people rely on first-rate Midwestern harvests.

But how will it affect residents of Lawrence and farmers of Douglas County? According to some experts, not much.

Kevin Dhuyvetter, professor and extension specialist of farm management at Kansas State University, said that while some people are looking for a spike in prices of goods created with corn and soybeans come harvest time, the market has actually been going in the opposite direction.

“The December [corn] market was in the high sevens, and it’s sitting at about six dollars now,” Dhuyvetter said. “The price of a raw commodity is actually a small percentage of the total cost of a product when you factor in manufacturing costs and transportation costs.”

As for Kansas farmers, Dhuyvetter said that the loss in Iowa and surrounding area will not create any extra strain or pressure for others to produce a higher yield, although it may cause an ever-so-slight increase in grass-fed livestock.

"There's not much you can do at this point in time once the corn is in the ground," Dhuyvetter said. "One man's misforture is another man's fortune."

Some farmers are getting help with failing crops from professionals like Agronomist Jim Fawcett. The self-proclaimed "Crop Doctor" (it's even on the license place of his pickup truck) said he has what he calls "a master's in oats and a Ph.D. in weeds," in an interview with National Public Radio. He travels to problem fields and offers his opinion and solutions, all free of charge courtesy of Iowa State University Extension.

"I just wanted to find a way to help," Fawcett said.

Financial help is also being offered through a branch of the United States Department of Agriculture, called the Farm Service Ageny. According to its Web site, "The Farm Service Agency provides assistance for natural disaster losses, resulting from drought, flood, fire, freeze, tornadoes, pest infestation, and other calamities." The assistance was a permanent fixture on this year's Farm Bill.

Although Dhuyvetter said he does not think that the grain market has affected or will affect the price consumers pay at the grocery store, one area that he does believe is affected by grain price is the ethanol and alternative fuels market.

"When the price of corn goes up, and six dollars is still pretty high, some people begin to think that ethanol is not such a good idea," he said. "Right now there is less pressure to make changes. There was not quite as much damage in Iowa as they originally thought, so now it's people saying 'Hey, we're not going to have a shortage...' but if there is another hiccup there will be more talk about other alternative fuels."

But, Dhuyvetter said, "The corn market will have less impact on prices at the grocery store. The floods won't have much of an impact at all."