Ark. Crop Losses Hit $400 Million

January 31, 2010
By Larry Fugate
Pine Bluff Commercial

With Arkansas’ 2009 crop losses placed at almost $400 million, the impact is being felt across Main Streets in Southeast Arkansas, bankers, county agents and implement dealers said Wednesday.

“When a good farmer runs up against the weather, the weather wins,” observed Don Plunkett, county agent-staff chairman for Jefferson County Cooperative Extension Service.

Farmers in Chicot, Desha, Ashley and Jefferson counties were especially hard hit by the record rains in 2009. In many small communities across the Arkansas Delta, hundreds of jobs will be lost in agriculture-related processing.

“It has a ripple effect, a domino effect that we see now, but the full impact will not be realized until we get into the 2010 crop year,” said Gus Wilson, county agent-staff chairman in Chicot County. “It is already being felt by the retailers.”

Cotton producers were the hardest hit, with reduced yields and quality, in addition to the extra fieldwork required for planting and harvesting, observed Vince Stone, vice president for agriculture loans for Pine Bluff National Bank.

Three bankers, who would only comment off the record citing privacy concerns, indicated banks and implement dealers will probably take the biggest economic hits.

Wilson said three to four major producers in Chicot have seen their equipment loaded up to be sold at auction.

Economists with the University of Arkansas’ Division of Agriculture on Tuesday estimated the 2009 crop losses at $397 million, which translates into the loss of almost 3,700 full- and part-time jobs with $102 million in wages and salaries.

The value of soybean, corn and rice processing, cotton ginning and reduced spending by Arkansans whose household incomes are tied to agriculture was put at almost $203 million.

Half of the value of the cotton crops in Desha and Chicot counties was eliminated by spring rains that delayed planting and rainfall in the fall that stalled harvests, resulting in damaged cotton bolls and yields reduced by hundreds of pounds of lint per acre, said Wes Kirkpatrick, county agent-staff chairman in Desha County.

Soybeans, corn and rice yields were also reduced, with some grain elevators turning away some grain because of mold and moisture content, Kirkpatrick added.

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