Rains force farmers to brace for economic disaster
VALLONIA, Ind. (WISH) — Farmers across our state are bracing for an economic disaster after all of the recent rain.
Researchers at Purdue University said the rain over the past few weeks could cost farmers millions of dollars.
“Obviously this part right here is completely gone,” said Tom Hackman of Hackman Family Farm Market in Vallonia while looking at his flooded corn crop. “There’s no chance of any production in this area.”
Even with as bad as the flooding looks, Hackman says its much worse.
“You only see maybe 10% of the what’s dead. The volume of damage is actually quite a few times that, so it’s affecting a lot more,” said Hackman.
Hackman says they’ve received over eight inches of rain in the past month.
“Whether it’s our crops or whether making hay or cutting wheat, it’s shut us down pretty much on all fronts,” said Hackman.
They say it’s too early to quantify or put a dollar amount on the loss, or if it could be passed down to customers. They say they have to wait for the harvest. Most farmers have insurance which can cover some of their losses.
“Farming every year has its challenges,” said Grant von Dielingen, Hackman’s crop specialist. “Excess moisture is the challenge this year. Every year has its challenges, it’s just being able to work through those challenges and moving on an looking forward to better days.”
The flooding is the obvious and current concern for many, but Hackman says weeds will affect them long after the rain stops.
“The herbicides that we use to control the weeds in our crops and corn and soybeans, and produce has basically went away and so we have a flush of weeds, and I mean it looks like a carpet. They’re going to start pulling out nutrients out of the soils that’s being used by the plants we’re trying to grow crop from, and they’ll produce a seed and that’s a seed we’ll be fighting for years unless we can get a handle on it, which I don’t see how we can as long as the crop is in the field,” said Hackman.