Flood-affected S.C. farmers say they are not feeling a recovery

Several South Carolina farmers say recovery from the devastating October flood hasn’t begun for many of them.

Farmers face a triple threat that they say is peculiar to the Palmetto State because of the 22 inches of rains that fell on portions of the state over three days in early October.

Farmers prepared their fields in January, like each year before, and in early spring planted corn, wheat and vegetables. Later, they planted falls crops such as cotton, soybean and peanuts, and many prepared to plant an early wheat crop for the following year.

The October floods interrupted or negated all of that.

“I don’t believe there could have been a more perfect storm than we find ourselves in in South Carolina,” said Harry Ott, the new South Carolina Farm Bureau president and CEO. “This whole disaster is so localized to central South Carolina – and South Carolina only almost – it’s hard to get national attention.”

The farmers say they need national attention in order to have any chance of getting national assistance – financial aid from Congress. South Carolina farmers say they have asked congressional leaders to request disaster relief in the upcoming federal budget.

At his 1,700-acre farm in Turbeville, fourth generation farmer and USC graduate Jeremy Cannon planted six crops in spring and summer with expectations of making $1.8 million in gross revenue. Two weeks before Christmas, expected gross revenue for the 2015 crop is down to $800,000, he said.

“This year, as far as good luck, there has not been good luck,” Cannon said. “We had extreme drought during the summer. All of our spring crops suffered.”

Cucumber crops that normally produce an average of around 22,000 pounds per acre this year produced about 4,600 pounds per acre at Cannon’s farm, he said. Going more than 60 days with only two inches of rain in June and July, topped by 10 days of 100-degree heat, did the cucumber crop in, Cannon said.

Corn, typically harvested in September and categorized as a fall crop, was also damaged in the summer heat, Cannon said, as the heat hit when the corn was trying to pollenate.

“Our corn crop came in right at 40 bushels (per acre),” or about 30 to 35 percent of their proper 105 to 110- bushel-per-acre yield, he said. “So, we had three crops that were damaged by the drought before the flood ever came,” Cannon noted.

Cannon’s three other major crops — cotton, soybean and tobacco — fell victim to the flood, he said. Cannon plants 180 acres of tobacco, his smallest crop measured in acreage, but it is his top cash crop. In a good year, his tobacco crop should yield about $5,000 an acre gross, he said. When the flood hit in October, Cannon still had 90 acres of tobacco left in the field, he said, valued at $360,000.

Unable to get machinery in the fields, Cannon said about 25 more acres was harvested on foot after the flood, adding more expense to a crop already made extra expensive because of the drought, he said. “The last 60 acres was a complete loss,” Cannon said.

His cotton and soybeans are still in the fields. The flood hit the Midlands at almost the precise time farmers were to start harvesting cotton, which should have been sitting at the local gin by Thanksgiving.

Two weeks before Christmas, the fields are still white with cotton, but it’s basically worthless, Cannon said. “Tobacco is the only one that may come close to paying out,” Cannon said.

In Holly Hill, Dean Hutto, a 2011 Newberry College graduate, is a sixth generation farmer who returned to the farm to carry on a profitable family tradition with his father, Barry, and his brother, Richard.

“In my lifetime, I’ve never seen it (a crop year like 2015),” said Barry Hutto, the head of the 4,000-acre farm. “We’ve had tougher years, but not a year we didn’t harvest (completely) any crop.”

Losing a crop “here and there” is part of the cycle of farming, the senior Hutto said. This year, Hutto said, he harvested an irrigated corn crop and a little of his wheat crop. The peanuts and cotton are total losses, he said.

“We’re leaving some in every field,” said Hutto, who plants corn, cotton, wheat, soybeans, peanuts and oats. Corn was his ‘cash’ crop this year, but for the first time in 30 years, Hutto said he won’t be planting a fall wheat crop, because he can’t get into the fields. That will affect next year’s income, he said.

Dean Hutto said he came back to the farm after college knowing it was what he always wanted to do – feeling lucky to follow in the footsteps of his forefathers. He also knew 2015 was going to be difficult, because of low commodity prices. “One thing about farming is it’s always different. You can wake up in the morning with a plan and by 8:05 your plan is going out the window. That’s what happened this year.”

The Hutto farm added peanuts to their crops in about 2003, the young Hutto said. Crop diversity is supposed to help insure against devastating single crop losses. “Even our peanut contract was the lowest it’s been since we’ve been growing them in 2003. And then, we didn’t get most of them harvested.”

The highest-coverage crop insurance available to South Carolina farmers would cover 85 percent of damages, said Ott, a longtime farmer and former state legislator. Best estimates are that less than 1 percent of crop insurance policies in the Palmetto State carry that level of coverage, because it is “cost prohibitive,” he said.

Most crop insurance policies sold in the state fall into the 70 percent range, Ott said, though many farmers carry as little as 50 percent coverage. If, for example, a farmer has a 90 percent crop loss, he is still expected to harvest the remaining 10 percent in the field, because that “comes off” the farmer’s total financial guarantee.

Farmers asked Gov. Nikki Haley to write a letter to congressional leaders asking them to put some form of federal disaster relief in the 2016 budget, but were turned down. Without it, farmers would be left with the prospect of not earning any income until of 2016, after they plant and harvest new crops, they said.

Haley sent a November letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack enumerating many of the concerns and issues outlined by S.C. farmers, and asked the department to expedite aid to the farmers. Haley also sent a letter to the S.C. congressional delegation, but noted that no farmer who was properly insured and viable before the flood should lose their businesses as a sole result of the flood.

“The historic flood that hit South Carolina in October damaged businesses and homes across our state, and farmers were not spared,” said Haley spokeswoman Cheney Adams, noting that farmers have access to federally subsidized crop insurance and lost revenue insurance.

“But what the Farm Bureau has asked for is direct cash payments from the federal government to farmers who chose to be under-insured, something that no other industry in the state is asking for or will be receiving, and the governor does not believe we should treat farmers differently than any other business owners in South Carolina.”

This story was originally published December 13, 2015 at 8:40 AM with the headline "Flood-affected S.C. farmers say they are not feeling a recovery."