Sowing sorrow

POINT BLUE — Point Blue farmer Mitch Soileau started letting his rice fields drain at the end of July in anticipation of the August harvest time, but Mother Nature decided to flood the fields all over again the weekend of August 13.
“This is the worst I’ve ever seen,” Soileau said as he drove to look at one of his ruined fields of soybeans down Sunshine Road on Tuesday morning. “With hurricanes, we get a lot of winds that knock crops down and we cut around it, but this was all under water.
“The water just came off the fields a few days ago, then we had two inches of rain again yesterday.”
The field of soybeans is just north of Bayou Marron, which passes under La. 29 between Chataignier and Point Blue. The highway was closed due to flooding for several days following the storm. To the naked eye, the field resembled a sea of dead, brown plants with other plant debris clinging to the ruined soybeans, pointing in the direction the floodwaters had moved. But to a farmer, the rows between the crop are easy to spot.
Soileau has farmed for 34 years, and he had 500 acres of rice and another 500 acres of soybeans planted for this season. He estimated about half his bean crop and at least 50 acres worth of his rice crop were ruined in the rains.
“This was a record breaker,” he said. “We’ve never had rain this bad. This was a week and a half of being in water, and it’s the same for the rice. It won’t be pretty. In 34 years of farming, I feel like I am going backwards some years.”
Soileau continued, “Some of the rice is flat, and it has germinated, started to grow. It is not worth picking up. The ruts from cutting will make it too late and too muddy for a second crop. We will have to deal with low prices now, too.”
A crop duster buzzed within earshot spraying over neighboring soybean fields that could be saved in an effort to ward off stinkbugs, which headed for higher plant life when rains flooded ground zero.
Soileau steered his farm truck back up La. 29 and west onto Vizinat Road to his rice fields as his combine driver Jody “Weelo” Fontenot steered the tractor off the levee and into the field.
“I hope he doesn’t bog,” Soileau said as the combine quickly slowed and then began to creep forward, leaving three foot deep ruts in its wake.
In addition to slower harvests, muddy fields also mean more money farmers will have to spend on fuel, and crop yields will likely also be affected by the historical rainfall.
Soileau motioned his tractor and grain cart driver over and gave him instructions on moving the rice as he offloaded it from the combine.
“Don’t let the hopper on the combine get too full and don’t haul a heavy load in the cart,” Soileau said. “I also marked a spot in the field with a jug on a pole — don’t let him drive in that water because he will get stuck.”
Soileau stood on the levee for a moment and watched as Fontenot steered the combine around in a shrinking square in the field.
“I’m worried about my cows, too,” Soileau said. “I’ve got 400 head of cattle, and I wonder what the mosquito population will do to them.”

Water from one
farm to the next
Just south of Bayou Marron, farmer and landowner Blyn Rozas was also dealing with rice and soybean losses. Rozas’s personal land is farmed by Hannan Deshotel, and the farm was planted with 400 acres of rice and 400 acres of beans. Rozas said about 100 acres of rice and another 100 acres of soybeans were in standing water following the storm, and he said the 100 acres of soybeans are a total loss.
Rozas and his brother, Therral Rozas, also have Deshotel farm their late father’s 85-acre farm, R & R Farms, and Rozas said they will only be able to harvest about about 25 of the 85 acres of soybeans.
Rozas began farming on his own in 1968, and he recalled a year it flooded in the parish when he farmed with his late father, Lastie Rozas.
“In 1964 it rained 10 inches in three hours,” Rozas said. “The flooding was just as bad, tit for tat, but the water ran off faster. But there were no crops planted when it rained then — they were all in by then.”
Rozas said Deshotel started harvesting rice in his fields the Wednesday after the storm, and the remainder of his soybean crop will be harvested in September.
He added, “I don’t know what the milling will be on the rice. It will be chicken feed. I don’t know what we will get for it.”
Rozas said Deshotel’s combines are on tracks, not tires, making cutting the rice in adverse conditions a bit easier, and he plans to harvest a second crop of rice later this season.
In 2014, almost 50,000 acres of rice and almost 35,000 acres of soybeans were planted in Evangeline Parish, according to the Louisiana State University Ag Center’s Louisiana Summary of Agriculture and Natural Resources. The two commodities are the most-grown crops in the parish. That year, there were 90 rice farmers in the parish, and the crop’s gross farm value was $51.7 million. There were 70 soybean producers, and the crop’s gross farm value was $17.2 million.
Farmers looking
to keep their heads
above water
James Jordan, Farm Service Agency county executive director for Evangeline Parish, said 10 to 12 farmers have come in so far to see what type of disaster assistance may be available.
“I’ve never had so many farmers coming in,” Jordan said. “Some will not be able to pay their loans at the end of the year just with the commodity price and now with the disaster. Worse, some said if they don’t receive compensation or a good government payment, they may not farm next year. Many are concerned they will not be able to farm next year.”
Jordan said a disaster package specifically for the crop losses incurred during the flood has not yet been announced by the USDA. Jordan said sometimes disaster programs are not announced until the following crop season, but he is hopeful something will be announced sooner rather than later because of the severity of the damage.
Disaster assistance and low-interest loads programs currently available through the USDA are the Non-Insured Crop Disaster Assistance Program, the Livestock Indemnity Program, Tree Assistance Program, the Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honey Bees, and Farm-raised Fish, Emergency Loan Program, Emergency Conservation Program and HayNet. For more information on current disaster assistance programs, visit FSA online at www.usda.gov/disaster.
“The biggest thing right now is the crops,” Jordan said. “There are lots of people with cattle and hay in the parish, and there are programs for them. Cattle are normally the biggest thing we see (problems with) in this situation, but this time it is the crops. We need something for the crop guys. There are no disaster programs from the crop guys, and we are working to try to get something for them.
“The silver lining is that I am getting no calls about dead livestock.”
Jordan said that even though emergency loans are available, many farmers are not looking to take out yet another loan to stay afloat.
“We are in a bind down here,” he added.
Jordan sits on the center’s emergency board, and the board will meet this week to decide if the Emergency Conservation Program will be activated. The program provides emergency funding for farmers and ranchers to rehabilitate land severely damaged by natural disasters, including fence loss.
“ECP will help the parish,” Jordan said.
He continued, “As a community and a nation, some people will say it looks like farmers are looking for a handout. They, the famers, are just trying to keep the food supply.”
In the meantime, Jordan said that farmers who have crop damages should document the damage to crop with pictures. Those who are short on hay due to the flood and are buying feed for cattle should also keep receipts for any feed purchased to replace hay.
“They can turn this in to the national office, and we will see if the will construct a relief package for famers,” Jordan said.
Jordan said the south and southeast parts of the parish had the worst crop damage, and rice, soybeans, hay crops and grazing lands were the hardest hit by the flood.
“I went out to check on my cattle that Saturday (Aug. 13), and there was water everywhere,” he said. “The tops of rice and soybeans were under water. It was devastating. Those beans that were under water, there’s no saving them.”
Jordan did not even want to speculate how many acres of crops were lost to the flood in the parish.
“We have farmers who lost halves and thirds of their crops,” he said.
Todd Fontenot, agriculture and natural resources extension agent at the Evangeline Parish LSU Ag Center in Ville Platte, also recommended that farmers document their losses from the flood.
“If you are incurring any extra costs due to flood, keep track of the expenses,” Fontenot said. “We are hoping for a disaster declaration (from the USDA) and for programs to become available. Farmers will need to have proof and documentation of what was destroyed.”
“Also, keep crops harvested from flooded fields separate from those harvested from fields that were not flooded. The yield and quality may be different.”
Fontenot said the Ag Center’s part in the disaster recovery will include compiling numbers on the damage.
“I have done some preliminary surveys of crops, but there is still a long way to go,” he said. “We need to know the percent of crop still in field and the percent damaged. Then we have had more rain since then.”
Since the flood, Fontenot said he has seen the excess water cause standing rice to germinate at the panicle.
“It will be a tough harvest season,” he said. “Rice yields are down this year, just before the rains, and the rice may have a quality issue. Luckily beans have not matured yet, but there will be disease pressure, and some beans are yellowing and showing signs of stress from the excess water. Some soybeans looked OK after the storm, and now they are just showing signs of being impacted by the rains.”
Fontenot said there will be several domino effects from the flooding.
“There may be an impact on crawfish, too,” he said. “Some people couldn’t drain lakes. Hay producers are behind on harvesting, and there will be quality losses. More water will be needed to fill ruts in the rice lakes next year. If farmers switch the field to another crop, they will have to spend more money and time preparing the land for the other crop.
“The flooding makes everything more expensive. There’s no bright side to it.”
Fontenot’s family farms in Duralde, and he said the southwest part of the parish was spared some of the brunt of the flooding, and none of their crops were in standing water.
One of the worst cases of loss Fontenot had heard following the storm was from the northeast part of the parish.
“Robert Floyd farms up near I-49, and he has 700 acres of rice he will not cut,” Fontenot said. “He was probably the hardest hit. Right now, he is helping farmers near Mamou harvest their crop because he can’t harvest his.”
He continued, “There is lots of uncertainty with what will happen. There has been too much rain, and it hasn’t stopped yet.”