CPOY

CPOY 75 Domestic Picture Story Award of Excellence: After The Rain

In his 64 years of life, Stephen Diederich hasn’t seen his farm this wet for this long. Flooding along the Missouri River has lasted since March and is expected to continue through the winter. People who used to live near his land moved out as the river kept flooding. “I’m so tired of mud after the flooding,” Stephen said. Other circumstances add to his challenge as a farmer. The trade war with China challenges exporting his products. He lives apart from his wife because she doesn’t want to live on the isolated farm, and sees her only twice a month. In between his efforts to revive his flooded farm along with his brother, Robert, he checks on his mom with dementia and feeds her over an hour for each meal. Seeing his children unwilling to take over his land as farmers, Stephen worries about what will happen to his land when he can’t farm anymore. “It concerns me a lot because we built this operation from nothing,” Stephen said. “I hate to see it die after one generation, but it may.”

Caption
Slide 1 of 8
November 2, 2019
Stephen Diederich looks at a fallen tree after flooding on his farmland in Wilton, Missouri on Nov. 2, 2019. High levels of water from the worst flooding since 1993 broke nearby levees. Water and sand that came with flooding swamped many trees on his land. Cornstalks on the land still remain because Stephen was too busy with other tasks to recover from flooding.
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