Steve Hurd fears he'll have a tough row to hoe in the months ahead as the worst drought in nearly 60 years grips the nation's heartland.

The drought has spread to more than 50 percent of the country and ravaged corn, soy and other crops, and state agriculture officials say it won't be long before its effects are felt here by farmers forced to pay a lot more for grain to feed their livestock.

Consumers will also eventually feel a pinch at the grocery checkout line, experts warn.

Not just Midwest

Hurd, owner of Hurd Farm in Hampton, worries about the cost of feeding his pigs and chickens grain on the 160-acre family farm where he sells locally raised meat, poultry and eggs. His beef cattle are now grass-fed to save on grain.

“It's a concern. I'm probably going to have to go up on my prices,” Hurd said Thursday while waiting for customers at a farmers market in Exeter.

Hurd is hardly alone.

Farmers across New Hampshire are preparing to take a big hit with more than 70 percent of the Midwest corn belt baking in drought conditions.

“It's not going to just have an effect on them; it's going to have a drastic effect on us, too,” said David Miner, president of the Strafford County Farm Bureau and owner of Live and Learn Early Learning Center, a nature-based education facility in Lee.

Ripple effect

Lorraine Merrill, the state's agriculture commissioner and co-owner of Stuart Farm, a 270-acre dairy operation in Stratham, has heard from many concerned farmers.

“It's pretty bad and it's got all livestock and poultry owners very, very concerned. The grain markets already have skyrocketed, and the predictions and outlooks are very uncertain. It looks like it could be very high priced grain and real shortages. I hear farmers saying, 'I don't know what we're going to feed the cows this winter,'” Merrill said.

With profit margins already tight, egg producer Phil Nugent of Mona Farm in Danville wonders what the higher grain prices will mean for the feed he needs for his 300 chickens.

“It looks pretty serious,” he said.

It's hard to predict how grocery stores will react, but Merrill said they'll likely have to raise prices on meat, eggs and other products, including foods containing corn and wheat.

“There will be a ripple effect,” she said.

Almost all of the grain comes from the Midwest, with some from Canada, Merrill said.

Other feeds for some livestock include hay and corn silage.

“I think the feed that can be produced and stored here on our own farms in New Hampshire and New England is going to be more important than ever,” Merrill said.

NH needs a soaking

But hay and corn crops here are also weather dependent, and some farmers are already complaining that dry conditions in recent weeks are curbing hay yields.

While New Hampshire isn't experiencing drought conditions, local agriculture experts are keeping their fingers crossed for more rain.

“We really need to have a good soaking rain for 24 hours, not showers, because most of the time it's just runoff,” said Nada Haddad, a field specialist in food and agriculture with the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension office in Brentwood.

According to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor report, conditions in southern New Hampshire – about 30 percent of the state — have been classified as “abnormally dry.”

Total precipitation in New Hampshire since Jan. 1 is only about 2 inches below normal, which includes snow melt, said Mike Ekster, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine.

Winter and spring were unusually dry, but conditions improved in June when the state saw near record rainfall.

“If we were 5 or 6 inches below, it would be a big issue. June really made up a lot of that deficit that we had after the winter,” Ekster said.

This is a time of year when drought conditions tend to develop, in part, because it's warmest time of the year, said Mary Stampone, state climatologist.

“If we receive below normal rainfall in July, which is the case thus far, the warm air will remove moisture from the soil, leading to abnormally dry conditions,” she said.

“In the past, abnormally dry to moderate drought conditions that develop during hot, dry Julys have persisted through the end of August, but conditions usually improve as we move into the cooler, wetter fall months.”

jschreiber@newstote.com