The ongoing story of drought in Virginia is a complicated one.
Some areas of the state have seen recent improvement thanks to rain from summer showers and thunderstorms. But those gains have been uneven across the Commonwealth. For example, the town of Pulaski just last week implemented mandatory water conservation orders due to the main drinking water reservoir there dipping below necessary levels (keep reading below for more on this).
Recent rain has definitely helped, but one area of the state has particularly struggled during the drought…
“I’ve heard lots of farmers – it’s been very spotty. So, one area will get a lot of rain and then a neighbor down the road, five miles down the road, will get nothing.”
Rosemary Life’s family runs a farm and wedding venue in Rockingham County. She also happens to be one of the county’s Cooperative Extension Agents. That’s a partnership between Virginia Tech and Virginia State University which seeks to help farmers and producers across the Commonwealth by providing educational assistance and tools about resource management and agricultural-based research.
Life tells me that the spotty nature of summer showers and storms is nothing new for producers in the Shenandoah Valley, but the current situation is particularly tough because it’s been going on for some time.
“We got some rain last summer in July and we got all excited and thought some of our yields were going to be pulling us out of the pits of despair, but it didn’t quite happen as much as we thought,” Life says. “And at this point, for crops, I’m just going to use corn as an example – the damage is kind of already done. We could definitely still use rain and it would definitely help fill out that kernel weight. However, a lot of the growth has already happened.”
This is adding to an already complicated calculus that farmers and producers across the state have to manage year in and year out.
I ask Life about the margins for farmers, which are pretty slim in normal times.
“Yes, because fertilizer prices are up. Gas prices are up. There’s a lot that’s not in their favor,” she says.
Produce like corn has been hit hard by the dry conditions – and we likely won’t know the full extent of that until fall harvest season arrives – but livestock farmers are also feeling the brunt – particularly because of one big factor…
“The biggest thing that has been impacted for this summer in our area is actually our pastures and hay supplies,” Life says.
That’s a reality for Jeremy Daubert – a farmer and another Cooperative Extension Agent in Rockingham County.
“We got a small dairy farm outside of Dayton,” he tells me as we discuss the current realities farmers are facing at the Rockingham County Fair, where many of these producers come to showcase their work. “We have about 30 head. We raise show heifers and sell fresh heifers. We’ve got a little bit of pasture there now that’s come with some of the rains we’ve had recently, but it’s not enough to completely supplement us, so we’re just kind of feeding hay all along.”
That calculus I mentioned is particularly important for cattle farmers – they are constantly trying to work ahead; determining how much hay they have on hand based on how many cows they have. Because it’s been so dry, cattle producers have had to blow through their stockpiles, which weren’t replenished in the spring as they would’ve been with normal levels of rainfall.
Many producers are having to take drastic measures…
“Because it’s been so dry statewide in this year, 2026, folks have had to look out of the area, out of state, to kind of find somewhere to import hay from,” says John Benner, another Cooperative Extension agent, this time for neighboring Augusta County.
Benner tells me that has been exacerbated by the fact that the last three years have had at least some period of extended dryness. This all represents additional costs on farmers.
“But you’re pretty much looking at a thousand dollars a cow when you include all expenses to be able to cover a beef cow throughout a year. Now, beef cattle prices have been up which have allowed for some profitability here the last couple of years, but as you can imagine, the drier it gets, the more expensive hay becomes," Benner says. “We really have seen three years or more where round bales – four by five or five by five round bales – that weigh maybe a thousand pounds give or take are bringing $100 a roll. That really was unheard of until here recently – high price used to be $70 a roll.”
Benner says part of the current equation for cattle farms in this part of the state right now is determining just how many cows they can manage given the lack of precious hay.
“If you’ve got cows that are eight, nine, ten years old – certainly older than ten years old – it may be a good time to send them off to market just because the risk of them being able to bring a calf in without any issue cropping up is a lot lower than a four-year-old cow,” he says.
The drought has hit pastures and hay supplies particularly hard, but there are other factors caused by the dry conditions themselves that may create headaches for farmers in Virginia and beyond.
"We’ve got a little bit of pasture there now that’s come with some of the rains we’ve had recently, but it’s not enough to completely supplement us..."
“A lot of times we’ll see lots of weeds that we had no clue that we had, but suddenly they pop up because of the right conditions,” says John Fike, a professor and grassland management expert at Virginia Tech. “And one of the right conditions is giving them sunlight and some heat. And if you grazed cool season grasses down short this spring because you were struggling to find enough feed for your cattle, and then you’ve stressed those plants because they don’t like it really hot, and then you’ve got all kinds of weed species that are like, ‘I like the heat. I like sunshine. Hey, this is open! I’m ready to go.’ And so, you get a lot of weed invasion.”
Fike says ground cover is a very important factor to consider for producers and backyard gardeners alike. Leaving grass tall enough to cover the soil keeps soils cooler, helps retain moisture and can help any rain that does fall to soak into the ground.
But farmers in need of forage to feed livestock have had to let them graze below that level to feed their herds…
“If the pastures or your front yard is cut to an inch or less and the rain comes – a lot of times, those soils are tight and hard and if there’s any slope, it runs off or it’s much harder to penetrate, so you have a lot of evaporative losses there,” he says. “That’s the thing people have been fighting; even people who have been doing a good job of managing cattle struggle because they realize they don’t have enough feed in front of them. So, they say, ‘Ok, I would normally leave this amount of residual, but this time I’m going to take it a little bit closer.’ And sometimes, you get into a negative spiral with that sort of situation.”
This year’s conditions have drawn comparisons to a significant drought more than two decades ago. That event in 2002 led the state to create its Drought Monitoring Task Force, which has been the advisory board that has led much of the response to this year’s drought.
Fike wasn’t in his current role at the time, which involves connecting with farmers across the state to hear their needs and concerns, but he does note one big difference between now and then…
“We didn’t have data centers drawing water. I talked with a delegate a few years ago, and he was talking about the aquifers in Northern Virginia are not being replenished as rapidly as they’re being depleted – and that was before the data centers.”
Fike tells me that farmers have a number of options to try to best handle the current drought. Cattle farmers in need of hay have turned to alternative options, including what’s known as “cotton gin product” – a byproduct of cotton harvesting.
“And cattle can eat that,” he says. “It’s not high quality, but it’s something that will sustain them. And farmers that are close enough to those markets that have access I think will buy some of that and be ok with that.”
Other options include planting crops that thrive in the summer conditions that could provide some feed for cattle until rain and forage production can return to normal levels – but the planting window for summer crops has passed for this year.
“Supplements, alternative forages – maybe you get them, maybe you don’t if you’ve gotta plant them this year,” Fike says. “Maybe some changes in grazing management. Purchase feeds beyond supplements, so a lot of hay or that sort of thing. Each of those has costs and risks associated with it.”
Rockingham County – and many other localities across the state – have received drought disaster declarations from the U.S. Department of Agriculture – meaning farmers there are eligible to receive assistance in the form of low-interest loans.
Virginia Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry Katie Frazier talked about that and some other strategies the state is working on to help impacted farmers at an event at Smith Mountain Lake last month.
"And we're partnering with agricultural leaders at the local and federal level to ensure resources like a hay clearing house through the Department of Agriculture, Virginia Cooperative Extension assistance and USDA Farm Service Agency low-interest loans and other programs are made available," she said.
In a statement requested for this story, a spokesperson for Governor Abigail Spanberger says her administration "continues to monitor drought conditions and impacts on agriculture across the Commonwealth, particularly the availability of hay for livestock farmers. While recent rain has improved drought conditions, the recovery of ground water, reservoir, and surface water levels will take time and consistent long-term rain. Governor Spanberger is evaluating all options available to respond to the challenges she is hearing from Virginia’s farmers and producers — including specifically as it relates to low hay levels.”
In addition, the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services is also updating that hay clearing house (as recently as last week) to help connect farmers with sources of hay. This includes out-of-state hay resources to help supplement the shortages in Virginia. The clearing house also provides space where farmers in need of hay can express their need with the goal of being connected to a seller with surplus supplies.
As for the months ahead, El Nino conditions have arrived in the tropical Pacific. While every iteration of that global weather pattern is different, that could potentially lead to more storm systems, as the jet stream over the northern Pacific Ocean tends to move further south – bringing the storm track over the southern part of the United States.
Hopefully, that means more precipitation and a return to some level of normalcy for Virginia farmers. And one thing I heard over and over during interviews for this story is how no matter what the future holds…
“Farmers are pretty resilient,” Rockingham Extension Agent Rosemary Life says. “At this point, the crops are in the ground that we have. They’re just going to have to take to market what they have.”
That’s also the sentiment from farmer and fellow Extension Agent Jeremy Daubert.
“We’ll manage. It’s just a little more work and a little more expense.”
A "worrisome" situation in Pulaski
Gatewood Lake, Pulaski's primary source of water, is about 20 feet below full capacity, says Town Manager Todd Day, which is what the reservoir levels were in January. Day adds there was some rainfall this spring that allowed levels in the reservoir to rise a few feet, but then dropped in July.
He says the water fills from several creeks near Max Meadows, in Wythe County, so even if rain reaches the town of Pulaski, it may not be the same weather pattern in Wythe County.
Day considers the situation “worrisome.” Without significant increases in rainfall, he says it’s possible that the town will run out of drinking water from Gatewood, but said they have several back up options they are considering, and are working with the Virginia Department of Health and the Department of Environmental Quality on these plans.
*Radio IQ's Roxy Todd contributed this report.
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