> Dear Russ:
>
> There's been little news on the recovery from the flood since the
> immediate effects were know.
>
> Will you tell us what you're hearing and reading about farmers and farms
> in North Carolina? By us I mean sanet. It's news we all need to be
> aware of.
>
> Thank for your original posting,
> glenn
> Buy from the Farmer
> www.smallfarms.com
Okay, news has been a bit sketchy, and assessments are slow coming in.
Official NCDA assessments are lower than have been reported (in fact it is
claimed that 500,000 hogs are dead, while NCDA says 28,000 are dead).
Commodities affected (according to NCDA) are as follows:
corn (370,000 acres destroyed)
soybeans (over 1,000,000 acres destroyed)
tobacco (80,000 acres affected)
cotton (748,000 acres gone)
peanuts (111,000 acres destroyed)
Fruits and Vegetables (55,000 acres)
Crop Total $522,290,187
Livestock Total $2,644,222
Farm Structure $263,436,000
Total $798,370,409
Most critically affected areas "Down-East" were underwater for more than a
week, and some acreage is still submerged. Obviously, some land won't yet
support a tractor. I'm not sure what kinds of support the farmers are
receiving, but they need a lot of help!
As a plant pathologist, I know that more damage will manifest itself into
the next season. As waters recede, leaving drowned plants, those plants
will be colonized by opportunistic diseases, and some disease structures
will over-winter, creating problems for the next crop.
the North Carolina Department of Agriculture has a webpage:
More Information is available there.
The hurricane also affected several extension related activities, including
a Soil Quality Workshop at one of the experimental stations, Carolina
FarmShow, and the State Fair (which begins soon, and is an important
agricultural exposition) will not see the same quality of entries.
-----
Russ Bulluck
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Plant Pathology
North Carolina State University
PO Box 7616
Raleigh, NC 27695-7616
http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/plantpath/Personnel/Students/webpage.htm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The soil population is so complex that it manifestly cannot
be dealt with as a whole with any detail by any one person,
and at the same time it plays so important a part in the soil
economy that it must be studied.
--Sir E. John Russell
The Micro-organisms of the Soil, 1923
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