Harvesting Wheat in Drought-Parched Kansas

A global grain shortage has put extra pressure on American farmers. Can they navigate extreme weather and skyrocketing inflation when the world needs them most?
Photographer: Stephen Ross Goldstein
Publisher: The New Yorker
Format: Digital
Date: 2022/07/22

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David and Lisa Schemm repair a combine during the summer wheat harvest in Sharon Springs, Kansas. They’ve been contending with drought, inflation, and price shocks brought on by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Photograph by Stephen Ross Goldstein for The New Yorker
With millions of tons of grain stuck in Ukraine, some farmers in Kansas feel a moral dimension to this year’s harvest. “That’s honestly what’s weighing on me more than anything,” David Schemm said. Photograph by Stephen Ross Goldstein for The New Yorker
Photograph by Stephen Ross Goldstein for The New Yorker
Photograph by Stephen Ross Goldstein for The New Yorker
During the harvest, millions of bushels of wheat are sent to grain elevators across the state. Photograph by Stephen Ross Goldstein for The New Yorker
The Schemm family has been in Kansas since before the Dust Bowl. Photograph by Stephen Ross Goldstein for The New Yorker
Photograph by Stephen Ross Goldstein for The New Yorker
Clay, David, and Lisa Schemm farm twelve thousand acres in western Kansas. Lisa worries that drought will make fall’s crop “dismal.” Photograph by Stephen Ross Goldstein for The New Yorker
In March, the Governor of Kansas, Laura Kelly, put each of the state’s hundred and five counties under a drought watch, warning, or emergency.
Photograph by Stephen Ross Goldstein for The New Yorker
David Schemm, a fourth-generation wheat farmer. Photograph by Stephen Ross Goldstein for The New Yorker
Photograph by Stephen Ross Goldstein for The New Yorker
The draper head of a combine. Photograph by Stephen Ross Goldstein for The New Yorker
Photograph by Stephen Ross Goldstein for The New Yorker
Photograph by Stephen Ross Goldstein for The New Yorker
Photograph by Stephen Ross Goldstein for The New Yorker

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