Farmers still reeling months after Hurricane Helene ravaged crops across the South

LYONS, Ga. — Twisted equipment and broken tree limbs still litter Chris Hopkins’ farm in Georgia more than two months later Hurricane Helene made its deadly march through the South.

An irrigation sprinkler system about 300 feet long lay overturned in a field, its steel pipes bent and welds broken. The mangled remains of a grain warehouse lay crumpled along the road. On a Friday in early December, Hopkins dragged hefty limbs from the path of the tractor-like machine that picks his cotton crop six rows at a time.

“I’ve been struggling with a lot of emotions these past two months,” said Hopkins, who also farms corn and peanuts in rural Toombs County, about 75 miles west of Savannah. “Can we just get through this situation and stop it? Do we build back? It’s emotionally draining.”

Hopkins is one of the southern farmers still reeling from the devastation of Helene. The storm made landfall in Florida on September 26 as a major Category 4 storm and then swept north through Georgia and neighboring states.

Experts estimate the cost to farmers, timber growers and other agricultural businesses from Florida to Virginia will exceed $10 billion. The toll includes destroyed crops, uprooted timber, destroyed farm equipment and mutilated chicken coops, as well as indirect costs such as lost productivity at cotton gin mills and poultry processing plants.

For cotton growers like Hopkins, Helene struck just as the fall harvest was beginning. Many have suspended most cleaning efforts to try to save what was left of their crops.

Farmers in Georgia suffered storm losses of at least $5.5 billionaccording to an analysis from the University of Georgia. In North Carolina, a government agency calculated that farmers suffered $3.1 billion in crop losses and recovery costs after Helene brought them in record rainfall and floods. Separate economic analyzes of farm damage found losses of up to $630 million in Virginia, $452 million in South Carolina and $162 million in Florida.

Hopkins estimates he has lost half the cotton on his 560 acres of land.

“We were at the most vulnerable stage we could possibly be,” he said. “The fluff was open and fluffy and hanging there, waiting to be defoliated or plucked. About 50% of the harvestable lint ended up on the ground.”

Even with insuranceHopkins said he won’t be able to recoup an estimated $430,000 in losses from his cotton crop alone. That doesn’t include the costs of removing debris, repairing or replacing damaged machinery and the loss of two small pecan orchards uprooted by the storm.

The storm raged through blooming cotton fields, through pecan orchards laden with nuts and through fields where fall vegetables like cucumbers and squash waited to be picked. Hundreds of large poultry houses where thousands of chickens used to be raised at the same time have been destroyed.

Farmers far from central Helene were not spared as the tropical storm’s winds reached up to 300 miles (499 kilometers).

“It was staggering,” said Timothy Coolong, a professor of horticulture at the University of Georgia. “For some people, this may just be too much.”

Helene was one of the deadliest U.S. hurricanes in nearly two decades. which killed more than 200 people. More than 100,000 homes damaged or destroyed in the south.

The Georgian government made a diversion in November $100 million that was earmarked for construction projects or paying off existing debts to finance emergency loans to farmers and for cleanup efforts in the aftermath of Helene. Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has made additional storm assistance a priority for the coming parliamentary term.

But Georgia’s constitution prohibits the use of state funds for direct disaster relief to individuals and private companies.

In Congress, a new plan late Friday that would temporarily fund federal operations included billions in disaster aid to farmers.

“We need help, but we need it quickly,” said Jeffrey Pridgen, a fifth-generation farmer who raises chickens in South Georgia’s Coffee County.

Pridgen operated a dozen poultry houses, each large enough to raise as many as 20,000 chickens at a time. Helene destroyed four, along with thousands of chickens. Only one of Pridgen’s houses is still functioning, the others are badly damaged.

Pridgen said new chicken coops will cost about $450,000 each. Because most of them were decades old, he expects insurance to cover only half the cost.

“I was looking at my pension, but I lost my pension and my income in one day,” said 62-year-old Pridgen. “It will take two years before we are fully operational again. I’m actually starting over.”

Georgia’s poultry industry suffered an estimated $683 million hit, with farmers having to rebuild about 300 chicken coops and repair hundreds of others.

The poultry processing plant that relies on Pridgen and other storm-affected farmers for chickens now operates only four days a week, he said.

“Now we’ve been in rebuilding mode for at least a year, maybe a little longer,” said Mike Giles, president of the Georgia Poultry Federation. “That has consequences for production in an area for a longer period of time.”

Helene’s devastation shouldn’t have much impact on consumer prices, because crops grown elsewhere can make up most of the shortfall, said Michael Adjemian, a professor of agricultural economics at the University of Georgia. Pecans are a possible exception. Georgia is responsible for about a third of U.S. production.

“In most cases, even a terrible storm like this will have a relatively minor impact,” Adjemian said. “And it might not even be noticeable, depending on the product.”

Helene cost cotton farmers in Georgia about a third of their harvest, with direct and indirect losses worth $560 million. Some were still recovering from it Hurricane Michael in 2018.

Cotton growers also faced low prices this harvest season of about 70 cents per pound (0.45 kilograms), said Taylor Sills, executive director of the Georgia Cotton Commission. That meant they needed a large yield to make a profit.

“They were terrible times, and then they got hit by a hurricane,” Sills said. “There are people who have lost everything and there are people who haven’t. But everyone has lost something.”