Craven farmers hit hard by hurricanes, dry summer

Sun Journal (New Bern, NC)

Oct. 19--Two straight years of damaging hurricanes combined with an unusually dry summer have left Craven County farmers with very little to show for their hard work.

After Hurricane Florence decimated field crops in the fall of 2018, farmers faced near-drought conditions this summer, when rainfall was between eight and 12 inches below normal most months. Then in September, Hurricane Dorian's punishing winds and heavy rains dealt a final blow in what has been a devastating year for many area growers.

According to Mike Carroll, Craven County agriculture extension agent, corn, cotton and tobacco crops have been especially hard hit by the unpredictable weather.

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"About 70 percent of the corn had been harvested by the time Dorian hit, and it was horrible anyway, it was pathetic. Tobacco was probably the largest loss, it was roughly 60 percent of the crop. Cotton wasn't as bad, but probably 15 percent of it was lost," said Carroll.

On top of the storm damage, Carroll said farmers are also struggling with extremely low commodity prices, a consequence of overproduction.

"There's no indication that prices are going to go up. Every time we have a three to five percent increase in yield that's awesome, but that also means you have to find new markets," he explained. "Some of our developing countries are beginning to have 30 percent increases due to technology and better management."

Carroll said the tariffs on agricultural products put in place by President Donald Trump as part of his administration's trade war with China have also played a part in suppressing commodity prices.

"The tariffs are not helping, but then again because of world supply countries that we might not be trading with are just going to South America to get their needs met."

Carroll said very few Craven County farmers broke even financially over the last year.

"The only way that I had a budget to be profitable was if the farmer-owned the land himself," he commented. "If you paid anything more than about $40 an acre, you lost money, and that's getting worse rather than better. Landowners and farmers are both looking at this situation trying to negotiate some terms, but in some cases there's simply no profit there for the farmers to pay."

Many farmers have been forced to utilize equity in their equipment or sell portions of their farms, said Carroll.

"Any business can suffer a bad year but you can't suffer three or four in a row. And all of the three to five-year projections don't show anything any better."

According to Carroll, many farmers are looking to alternative crops, such as hemp, to help offset their losses.

"A lot of people are putting a lot of faith in hemp, but that's turning out to be quite a challenge in both production and sales and marketing. I still have hope that by the time we get some herbicides and fungicides labeled (for hemp) and then maybe get a processor that could use the fiber for linens or biodegradable plastic bottles, that's a possibility. But until we get there it's like the wild west, beware."

"There's a lot of (new) potential crops, but all of them are just beyond reach at the moment," he added.

Many farmers are turning to small-scale vegetable production and livestock or simply downsizing, he noted.

"I've had some farmers look at just reforestation. It takes decades and sometimes centuries to get land into excellent shape so I hate to lose it, but if that's the only option..."

While the state's overall agriculture economy remains strong, Carroll said farmers on the coast have suffered disproportionately.

"We literally had corn that had zero yield because it was so dry this summer," he said. "Part of that was a lack of rainfall and also because we warmed up earlier. We hit temperatures by early-May that we usually don't hit until mid-June."

Carroll said local growers will need to be "very prudent and very conservative" to remain profitable. He noted that farmers just recently began signing up for federal recovery money from Hurricane Florence.

"That's very frustrating to many farmers who have voiced their concerns over that," he said. "The farm program pays people well after-the-fact and that doesn't help."

Yield fluctuations in other parts of the world can have dramatic impacts on commodity prices, said Carroll.

"That's the nature of farming, I hate to say it but it is. There's a fine line between being short and having excess. Because we move food so quickly from the farm to the end-user that a 10 percent or 20 percent shortage somewhere can really alter prices very quickly."

Despite the admittedly gloomy outlook, Carroll said he is hopeful a combination of new technology and innovative marketing can help turn around the prospects for local farmers. He noted that a new cotton plant has been developed that has edible seeds, which could provide additional income for farmers. He said natural and organic food markets also hold promise for growers.

"We have a lot of growers associations and marketing groups and they're out there doing their jobs, trying to find new markets and new uses. They may have to change the way they do things, but if a farmer can hang in there it will get better."

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