“By analyzing the data surrounding crops impacted by the weather over the past century, we can use that data to predict what Mother Nature has in store.

It all comes down to the 89-year cycle, also known as the Benner Cycle.

Regardless of whether it’s a good or bad year, Dr. Taylor found that similar results occurred 89 years previously and a further 89 years before that.

Dr. Elwynn Taylor is a climatologist and agriculture meteorologist with Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa.

Not only was his data based on crop harvests since the 1800s, but Dr. Taylor also backed up his data with the physical evidence of tree rings.

Tree rings are wider apart in warm, wet years but are thinner in cold, dry years. When the stressful experience of a drought hits, a tree may not show any growth at all, instead expending its energy only to survive.

The Benner Cycle was created in 1885 by Samuel Benner (1832–1913), a prosperous farmer who was wiped out by the economic Panic of 1873 and wanted to learn what caused market fluctuations.

Relative to crops, he discovered that weather cycles were the cause, publishing his results in his book, Benner’s Prophecies.

Going back to data collected just before the 1800s, Benner determined the impact of the dry/wet weather cycle and then postulated through the year 2000 just what its impact would be.

Using the Benner Cycle, Dr. Taylor showed its predictive nature to be accurate, plus or minus one year. While an 89-year cycle spread over 220+ years is not irrefutable evidence of the process, Dr. Taylor’s research into weather and its effect on crops shows that he and Benner may be onto something tangible.

In his home State, Iowa, Dr. Taylor noted that between 1900 and 2000, there was an approximate 18-year cycle with a one-in-three chance of a drought for corn harvests. For the other years, the odds of a drought became one-in-12 or a one-in-13 chance.

Dr. Taylor pointed out that farmer Benner’s calculation pre-1900 showed that the average time between droughts was every 18.6 years.

Data from Dr. Taylor showed that weather volatility is likely to be more significant over the next 20 years across North America, and he cautioned farmers that risk management would be paramount to preventing disaster.

The Worst Is Yet To Come

Examining the historical aspect of the Benner Cycle, Dr. Taylor said that the worst part of the 89-year cycle occurred in 1846-7, followed by the so-called “Dust Bowl” years of 1935–6.

Following that 89-year cycle, Dr. Taylor suggested that the next most volatile year will begin in 2025—i.e., the worst year for crops in both the US and Canada will be in two years.

But what should we expect? Farmers in the 21st century are certainly better stewards of the land than their 19th and 20th-century counterparts, so there will not be a repeat of the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, when dry, dusty windstorms blew away the nutrient-rich topsoil from millions of acres of American farms in the central and southwestern interior.

That destroyed the livelihoods of farmers and migrant workers across Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma.“