Still counting the cost

Hurricane Florence is testing the resolve of farmers in the US states of North and South Carolina, who could face billions of dollars in agricultural damage while still feeling the sting from Hurricane Matthew almost two years ago, according to a story by Gary D. Robertson and Emery P. Dalesio for Associated Press.
Writing on Friday, the AP reporters said that after ‘last weekend’s’ high winds and rain that was followed by ‘this week’s’ rising rivers and standing water in fields, early farm reports were confirming pre-storm worries about losses to tobacco, cotton and corn crops.
Matthew hurt eastern North Carolina farmers in 2016, but that storm arrived in October, after most field crops had been harvested.
With Florence, most major crop harvests were still underway or just getting started. “This hurricane couldn’t have come at a worse time,” North Carolina Farm Bureau president, Larry Wooten, was quoted as saying.
North Carolina is unlikely to have preliminary crop damage estimates until the end of the next week, said state agriculture commissioner Steve Troxler. Floodwaters and blocked country roads were making it difficult for agency agronomists to check out farms.
Five of North Carolina’s top six farming counties are within the hardest-hit areas in the eastern part of the state.
“I think it’s easily going to be in the billions of dollars,” Troxler said in an interview, calling the damage “catastrophic” and “unbelievable”.