Alabama row-crop growers facing major crop disaster  - 2009-11-19

Perhaps no other adage better describes a crop year fraught with such deep irony and bitter disappointment: "When it rains, it pours."

After years of drought, the one thing farmers wanted more than anything was rain. They got it in buckets, not only when they needed it but also, in far too many cases, when they didn't need it.

"We're used to talking about a drought, but this time, it's virtually a flood," says Dr. Robert Goodman, an Alabama Cooperative Extension System specialist and Auburn University associate professor of agricultural economics.

"We had a very good crop on the way in many areas — a good crop almost everywhere — but prospects for records are gone as sure as the sun rose this morning," Goodman says. "It's over."

The early soybean crop is especially telling, Goodman says. "They're gray, moldy and withered in the field and the beans have very low test weight, an important quality measure. Yields are also very low."

If unrelenting harvest rains didn't bring enough irony, soybean producers must now deal with the added frustration of drastically reduced yields at a time when soybean prices are running especially high.

"Soybeans are selling for about $10 a bushel on the big board, which would mean about $9 plus at the farm," Goodman says. But because of their reduced yields and degraded quality, some Alabama soybean farmers will be lucky to get a dollar a bushel, he says.

"In some cases, they may have a field of soybeans on which they've spent roughly 300 dollars an acre, and instead of receiving $400 in revenue, they're getting $50 an acre," says Goodman.

But soybeans are by no means the exception, he says. It's the same for corn, cotton and peanuts.

Right now the peanut situation is ominous, but not yet dire.

"The potential for problems is huge," Goodman says. "Harvest already has been delayed on a lot of the acreage, and the vines are on the point of deteriorating rapidly."

The vines not only serve as the peanuts' umbilical cord but also as a lifeline during harvest: strong enough to hold the peanuts as they are pulled from the ground.

"As those vines decompose and weaken, you begin to lose both yield and crop quality," he says.

And among all row-crop producers these days, quality is as critical a concern as yields.

"With the health and quality standards in place now, we're far beyond the days when you could blend in a little mold on the crop and no one would be any worse off," Goodman says.

"In modern times, if a crop is not top quality, buyers just don't want it at any price."

What can be done?

The agricultural community is pinning their hopes on disaster relief.

There is a permanent disaster provision in the 2009 farm bill, but there is one rub: The U.S. Secretary of Agriculture has to declare disaster before the relief process can even start. With crop failure looming, Goodman and other crop experts and commodity group leaders already are trying to kick-start this process.

"We are working to raise awareness among policy makers and to get this process moving rapidly forward," he says.

Farmers are also seeking relief assistance from an ad hoc disaster bill that would address these losses not only in Alabama, but across the mid-South. Hopefully, this legislation will provide supplemental funding for disaster relief from Arkansas to Georgia, Goodman says.

"While the Farm Bill disaster provisions will help, a case can be made for additional help in the face of big disasters, and what we face over the next few weeks qualifies as a big disaster," he says.

Practical advice for farmers right now, Goodman says, is to be a packrat with your paperwork: Crop records will be important for insurance claims and disaster relief.

"Everybody has crop insurance, but you've got to back up everything with records," he says, and farmers enrolled in crop revenue coverage insurance should be especially aware of the importance of good records.

Other than crop insurance and possible disaster relief, farmers are pretty much on their own as usual, according to Goodman, who advises especially hard-pressed producers to "talk to your creditor, lay your cards on the table as soon as you can, and make plans for recovery."