LITTLE ROCK (KATV) — Farmers across Arkansas are rushing to harvest their crops before Tropical Storm Francine barrels north from the Gulf.
Particularly vulnerable to the oncoming storm are the state’s rice crops, which are ripe for the harvest right now.
“When that rice goes down flat and you start saying we’re going to lose 10 bushels an acre, we’re going to lose more in quality, in the value of it, we’re going to double those production costs, so you start jumping to easily $50- to $100-an-acre losses,” said Rice Extension Agronomist Jarrod Hardke with the University of Arkansas System’s Division of Agriculture.
At its mature state, rice is weakened and unable to withstand strong wind and rain, which would collapse crops.
Aside from the potential yield loss, the surviving grain that has been blown down would take twice as long to harvest and potentially suffer a loss of quality.
Since Monday, farmers in the Delta have hurriedly begun harvesting to avoid potentially steep losses, but they may not be able to gather all their crops before the storm comes.
Lonoke farmer Scott Mitchell was hard at work gathering his rice crop today and could only speak with us over the phone from inside his combine harvester.
“Rice farmers don’t like hurricanes. We’re trying to get this rice out before the storm. It looks like we’re going to have about two days and we won’t get through, but we’ll get what’s ready,” Mitchell told KATV.
He and other farmers are praying the storm swings further east, away from Arkansas.
“But right now, still that potential is for the majority of the rice growing area for us to get three to four inches of rain and 40, 50-mile-an-hour winds,” Hardke said.
It’s all bad news in an industry that has already been struggling, with farmers across the country struggling to break even as they often put more money into their crops than they receive.
“We were already in a position where some of these crops were going to struggle to break even—if that were even possible—before the storm came through…we’d just start further reducing the price we’re going to receive for rice, for soybean, for cotton—again, due to quality loss alone and everything in an already very questionable year in terms of how many [farmers] may we potentially not have able to farm next year due to the outcomes of this season,” Hardke said.
“This is absolutely not what we needed at this point in time.”
“We’re going to work hard and say our prayers. It’s worked out for a long time and maybe it’ll keep working,” Mitchell said. “You’re not in control of the weather, God is, and we pray he’ll spare us a hurricane.”
As of Tuesday, about 40 percent of Arkansas’ rice crop has yet to be harvested.
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Publish date : 2024-09-11 11:22:00
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