Iowa ag secretary Mike Naig
While many Midwestern farmers faced weather challenges in 2020, Iowa farmers had more than their fair share.
The state’s 2020 growing season was dominated by two “d” words—drought and derecho. Iowa ag secretary Mike Naig says the derecho was unlike anything they’ve ever seen before.
“It’s not that we haven’t had derechos before—it’s just that we hadn’t seen one of this magnitude,” Naig says. “Something that went from southern South Dakota all the way over to western Ohio and cut a huge swath right through the middle of Iowa—millions of acres of cropland that were impacted.”
If not for the derecho, Naig says drought would have been the big story of the year for Iowa’s farmers.
