Agricultural hurt from Hurricane Michael’s rampage last week across Georgia, Alabama and Florida is anticipate to top $1.3 billion, with pecan and cotton farms the hardest hit as affectionately as the region’s poultry operations, according to officials.
“Hurricane and cotton is delight in oil and water — it just doesn’t mix at all,” said William Birdsong, an agronomist with the Alabama Cooperative Adjunct System and Auburn University in Headland. He estimated the loss to Alabama cotton crops could amount to just over $100 million and said the price of cotton could on the rise given damage also is in nearby production centers, including Georgia.
In Georgia singular, the latest farm-related damage estimate from the storm is $1.2 billion, and in Florida another $100 million to $200 million, harmonizing to agricultural economist Jeffrey Dorfman at the University of Georgia in Athens, who intentional damage in the region. This marked the third straight year that Georgia pecan growers procure suffered from damage due to hurricanes.
President Donald Trump and Firstly Lady Melanie Trump toured areas stricken by Hurricane Michael in Florida and Georgia on Monday. Trump tweeted Monday after succeeding in Florida that he was “thinking about our GREAT Alabama farmers and our various friends in North and South Carolina today. We are with you!”
https://chirp.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1051861686842474496
Last month, Hurricane Florence caused widespread devastation in the Carolinas, take ining significant losses to crops and to poultry and swine operations.
“Having aided firsthand some of the catastrophic damage from Hurricane Michael, I identify that farmers will need all the help they can get to recover,” Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue give the word delivered in a statement. “In addition to crop insurance, USDA has a variety of programs to relieve producers.”
As a result of Hurricane Michael’s high winds and heavy squalls, Dorfman estimates losses of $300 million on the Georgia cotton crop as good fettle as over $600 million in losses to pecans. Hurricane Matthew in 2016 produced the loss of about one-third of Georgia’s pecan crop.
Only around 15 percent of Georgia’s cotton crop was harvested before termination week’s Category 4 hurricane struck the region. Cotton is the top crop in names of production value in Georgia, followed by peanuts and pecans, according to U.S. Rely on of Agriculture figures.
“We lost most of this year’s (pecan) crop return tens of thousands of acres of orchards that will take a decade to supplant,” Dorfman said in an email. USDA figures show Georgia had thither 120,000 acres of pecans planted last year.
Peanuts, vegetable-growing actions and pine plantations in Georgia were also damaged. About 30 percent of the vegetables were collected before the hurricane and approximately half of the peanut crop.
Dorfman implied “nearly 100 chicken houses” were confirmed destroyed in Georgia, but he didn’t from a dollar figure on livestock losses.
The Georgia Department of Agriculture judged more than 2 million chickens were lost. It estimated the poultry toil contributes about $23 billion to the state’s economy.
Strong gusts exceeding 120 mph tore through some areas of Georgia, promoting some chicken houses to topple. Heavy rains also have a hand ined to the damage.
“Florida losses in agriculture are much smaller,” Dorfman summed, explaining that “there was less farmland in the path.” Even so, he point of viewed the Sunshine State suffered between $100 million and $200 million, on in part significant losses in pine plantations in Florida.
Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Adam Putnam carry on week indicated at least 3 million acres of timber were billed by the hurricane along with other commodities, including peanuts, cotton and tomatoes as spring as dairy, poultry and aquaculture.
Despite damage to trees, some of the load felled by the storm could potentially be salvaged to help in the rebuilding.
It could find suitable b leave years for the industry to recover and renew lost trees.
“We’ll continue to do the whole shebang we can to help Florida agriculture recover from this catastrophic whirlwind,” Putnam said in a release.
Cotton is Alabama’s top crop in terms of value, and the conjecture was for a record high yield of cotton this year. About 10 percent of the crop was reaped just before Hurricane Michael’s journey into the state.
“We were at the most untoward time for a storm to hit us, when cotton is being defoliated and the fibers are aired on the plant and harvest has begun,” said Birdsong, the Alabama agronomist. “That’s when the cotton is most weak to any kind of disastrous damage.”
Birdsong estimates about 1 million bales of cotton could be irreparable due to Hurricane Michael. He said Houston County in Alabama suffered the worst strife damage, followed by surrounding counties of Dale, Geneva and Henry.
“Not at most does southeast Alabama have a lot of cotton makers, but this dust-storm went on into Georgia, where they have about 1 million acres or so,” he stipulate. “Eventually the market will see that supply isn’t coming in, and the price of cotton could go on up.”
Some spring corn acreage was embroidered down by the hurricane in Alabama, but Birdsong said damage isn’t anything get a kick out of the cotton sector suffered. He also said the peanut crop had some collide withs in Alabama and Georgia but the biggest challenge is the loss of power and damage to infrastructure, counting some peanut elevators blown down.
“The peanut industry was in right shape where they were at in the harvest season, but now it’s the handling releases with the crop,” he said. “All these peanuts have to be dried whenever they are cropped. And you don’t have the electricity to put peanuts into the warehouse.”