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After Helene, initial ag assessments grim

Farms across the Southeast took a major hit from the Hurricane Helene with cotton, peanuts, pecans and more taking a hit from the storm.

Brad Haire, Executive Editor

October 4, 2024

4 Min Read
Hurricane Helene agriculture damage
Hurricane Helene knocked out most of Georgia's pecan crop. Many farms, like Moses Pecan in Uvalda, Ga., were left with very few or no trees standing. Facebook Moses Farms

Many could not expect the devastation they saw. How could they? Nothing like this had ever happened, especially to people and communities so far inland from the Gulf of Mexico. One week ago, Hurricane Helene changed things for far too many.

As of now, Helene is the second deadliest storm to hit mainland United States. Katrina’s tragedy unfortunately keeps the title for that.

Hurricane Helene changed the farming landscape for much of the Southeast. Damage assessment is underway. The full extent of the aftermath will not be understood for quite some time, but it will linger heavily over the region for months and years to come.

Editor’s Note: Hurricane Helene damaged agriculture throughout the Southeast Farm Press coverage area. Associate editor John Hart will have forthcoming articles explaining the storm’s affect in the Carolinas, which is extensive.

Cotton and peanut damage

The University of Georgia Extension peanut and cotton teams held a special podcast Oct. 2 to focus on what Helene did to the top row crops in Georgia. UGA Extension specialists and county agents — those not hobbled by their own experience and damage from Helene — are now actively assessing damage to crops along Helene’s path in east Georgia.

“It seems like across the state, we lost somewhere between 35% to 40% of our (cotton) crop. … And there are fields worse than that and some that aren't that bad, but that's what the number looks like. And we've still got a long way to go on getting data and seeing the reductions in fiber quality associated with this storm,” said Camp Hand, UGA Extension cotton specialist.

Camp said the damage by Helene could cost Georgia cotton farmers 600,000 bales.

Many peanut buying points in the affected area remain without power or have damaged infrastructure, Monfort said in the podcast. There are peanuts ready now that need to come out of the ground — if farmers can get into fields — that do not have their traditional buying point to go to for handling.

The industry, he said, will need to figure out logistics to help growers find places to dry and store this year’s crop, and they will, but time is ticking.

Along with the natural disaster, power remains out for many in rural areas, along with cell service, including farmers’ ability to use GPS to dig peanuts or guide equipment. Roads are blocked with debris, just getting to fields now remains a challenge or impossible in some locations.

Pecan devastation

Helene will prove to be the worst natural disaster to hit Georgia’s pecan industry, even worse than Hurricane Michael six years ago. Nobody thought anything could be worse than Michael.

Lenny Wells is the UGA Extension pecan specialist. In a Sept. 29 blog, he said the area affected most by Helene accounts for about a quarter of the state’s pecan acreage.

“What we are hearing from most growers is that large trees (40-50 years and up) have suffered about a 70% loss and younger trees have suffered somewhere around a 40% loss. When I say loss, I am referring to trees blown completely down. These numbers are yet to be confirmed but from what I have seen myself and gauging by what we saw from Hurricane Michael a few years ago, I don’t believe these numbers are an exaggeration. I have heard from people in the damage area who have 5 or 6 trees left standing, and several who have no trees left standing,” Wells says.

Moses Pecan is in Uvalda, Ga., about 160 miles northeast of where Helene made landfall. It is owned by Arren and Taylor Moses.

A Oct. 2 post on Moses Pecans Facebook page says, “A post we hoped we would never have to make. … When Hurricane Helene came through, she decided she liked Moses Pecans and took them with her. We are at a 80% total tree loss across all orchards. Our younger (10 and under) orchards seemed to weather the storm better and that is our 20% left but as we all know they will not produce for another few years.”

Power damage estimates

Georgia Power released a statement Sept. 29 saying, Hurricane Helene was the most destructive hurricane in its history. Initial damage estimates include:

  • 5,000-plus power poles that must be repaired or replaced.

  • 9,000-plus spans of wire equivalent to an estimated 425 miles.

  • 500-plus transformers.

  • 1,500-plus trees on power lines that must be removed or addressed to restore power.

This past weekend, Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper sent a letter to members of Georgia’s Congressional Delegation and asked for immediate federal funding to help Georgia farmers recover from Helene, the third hurricane to hit Georgia in the past 13 months. The letter was co-signed by House and Senate Agriculture & Consumer Affairs Committee Chairmen Russ Goodman and Robert Dickey.

The week following the storm, it didn’t rain. The sun shone over the wreckage, allowing relief, recovery and clean up to take place. But the heat remained steady for the Southeast with highs in the lower to upper 80s. Fields remained flooded. The historic rain that Helene dropped now drains South in rivers and creeks back to affected areas and areas not directly impacted by the storm, so the risk of additional flooding downstream remains a concern.

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