Drought turning farms to wasteland
Source: The Birmingham News, by Tavia Green
June 01, 2007
FAYETTE - Lance Whitehead knelt in the parched dirt Thursday and examined one of the small stalks on his 150-acre cornfield.
Where vibrant green plants with a couple of young ears of corn should've stood, yellow twisted stalks burned in the sun.
The corn should be chest high, Whitehead said, but some reached only to his waist. Other stalks barely came to his knees.
Across Alabama, an agricultural disaster is unfolding in slow motion. Nearly two-thirds of the corn crops and pastures and more than half of wheat crops are in poor or very poor condition, state officials say.
Cotton and soybean plants are starting to die, and there is little or no moisture in the soil to germinate peanuts, the state agriculture department reports. A third of the livestock is in distress with ponds, wells and streams drying up.
Whitehead, 34, like many of the 43,000 farmers in Alabama, could lose more than half of his crops. The extreme drought and summer heat threaten to force row-crop farmers and cattle ranchers to their knees.
"You almost have to rock back on your heels and just wait for it to rain," Whitehead said.
Thursday's U.S. Drought Monitor report showed 100 percent of the state is in drought, with 60 percent at the extreme level.
Danny Crawford, state executive director for the Alabama Farm Service Agency, said 41 of the 67 counties have been declared agricultural disaster areas. The agency is working with the governor's office to get disaster designations for the remaining counties.
As overall operating costs increase and the chances of a good crop dwindle, farmers like Whitehead and his partner, Todd Wakefield, 38, are feeling the stress of not knowing what will happen to their farming businesses this year.
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