Flooded fields and fickle temperatures put Louisiana farmers and ranchers in a pensive mood as they gathered in New Orleans this morning for the Farm Bureau Federation Convention, the state’s largest annual celebration of agriculture.
“I’m afraid this year is a nail-biter and a penny-pincher,” Franklin Parish row crop farmer Adam Faulk, one of as many as 2,000 producers at the convention, tells The News Star.
Cold temperatures and wet weather decimated the winter wheat crop and delayed planting for corn and other crops in the northeastern Louisiana Delta and Acadiana. That was followed by ferocious flooding that began when the Red River left its banks in northwestern Louisiana and created a muddy tsunami that rolled through central Louisiana.
Combine the weather with plummeting commodity prices and the lingering threat of bird flu facing poultry producers and Louisiana farmers and ranchers face their most uncertain year since the hurricanes of 2008.
“It started in North Louisiana and rolled its way down,” says Evangeline Parish’s Richard Fontenot, who grows rice, soybeans and crawfish. “We could all be in a pickle before this year is over.”
Caddo Parish beef cattle rancher Marty Wooldridge, who saw the Red River flood 500 acres of his grazing pasture land and 200 acres of hay meadows, says “this is one of the scariest years we’ve faced in a long time.”
This uncertain summer follows a six-year period described by Agriculture Commissioner Mike Strain as the golden age of Louisiana agriculture, where producers enjoyed bumper crops, high prices or a rare combination of both. Agriculture’s economic impact in Louisiana was $12.7 billion last year, a third consecutive annual record.
Strain says 2015 reminds him of 2008, his first year as the state’s elected agriculture commissioner.
“We had Tropical Storm Faye and hurricanes Gustav and Ike in 2008,” he says. “Like we did then, we’re going to put on a full court press to stand our farmers back up.”
Strain says he is working with the state’s federal delegation to secure a disaster declaration as well as a supplemental appropriation to assist Louisiana producers.
