Texas and Florida Farmers: Time to Face Crop Loss

It will take months to calculate the damage Hurricanes Harvey and Irma unleashed this summer on the states of Texas, Louisiana, and Florida: dozens of lost lives, hundreds of thousands of destroyed homes, tens of billions in property damage and untold suffering and disruption. Some losses will take years to mend, some can never be mended at all. For farmers, once conditions clear enough to inspect fields, a first order will be to assess losses to their crops. For many, this disaster, as bad as it was, could have been worse.  Texas farmers had been anticipating records crops in 2017 before the storm struck.  About 75 percent of rice and 15 percent of cotton was harvested or ready for harvest.  Cotton modules already dotted many fields.  But much remained exposed, and Harvey’s fierce winds and unprecedented 30-plus inch rains wreaked havoc on rural infrastructure.  Cotton gins and rice storage facilities suffered on a wide scale, potentially blocking many crops from reaching markets even if they survived the immediate hit.