Drought devastating farmers in Southern U.S.

MONTICELLO, Alabama (Reuters) -- Crouching in a field pockmarked with stunted plants, Larry Richardson pines for the days when abundant rain turned his Alabama farmland into a dancing sea of white cotton.

Richardson, 54, knows that this year there will be no such scene come harvest time. In a land where cotton farming is more a sacrament than an occupation, farmers throughout the Southeast are watching helplessly as a relentless drought turns once-fertile fields into barren tracts of dusty soil.

The drought, now in its third year, has decimated cotton fields in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Mississippi. Cotton can withstand high temperature, but not when it is combined with long dry spells.

"This cotton should be waist-high but it's not even a few inches," Richardson said, pointing to a cluster of tiny plants that survived a three-month stretch of dry weather in Pike County, Alabama.

"It's too late now to replant so it's just going to be a disaster this year," said Richardson, who also farms peanuts, corn and hay on 300 acres near Monticello, about 70 miles southeast of Alabama's capital Montgomery.

IMPACT OF DROUGHT WIDESPREAD

In neighboring Barbour County, the situation is no less dire. The county has received as much as 20 inches less rain than normal in the first six months of this year, a pattern mimicked in states across the Southeast.

Creeks and ponds that irrigate the farmland have dried up and seedlings planted in the spring have either withered in the scorching Southern heat or been scrounged by hungry animals.

Prompted by a shortage of hay and other animal feed, many farmers have begun selling off cattle in a desperate bid to weather the drought. And a growing number are considering getting out of farming altogether.

"We've been thinking of putting it on the market," said Sonny Corcoran, whose family tills about 4,000 acres near Eufaula, Alabama, a stone's throw from the Georgia border.

"It's heartbreaking when you work 45 years and it burns up like this," said Corcoran, 68, adding that some farmers had been forced to refinance land and delay purchases such as tractors.

Although the cotton crop appears hardest hit by the drought, farmers see little to smile about when contemplating the fate of peanuts and corn, two other key crops in the Southeast.

Corn stalks have withered in the searing heat with ears growing to only half their normal size. Many farmers with crop insurance already have requested permission to plow corn fields under or harvest the crop early for animal feed.

Most concede this year's corn crop in the Southeast, particularly southern Alabama, is all but a write-off this year. The consensus is that peanuts will be only marginally better.

And farmers are not likely to offset the lower yields with higher prices. Agricultural commodities continue to slump on world markets while the price of fuel used to power farm equipment remains painfully high.

December cotton futures recently traded at about 57 cents a pound on the New York Commodities Exchange, a far cry from three years ago when cotton garnered roughly 75 cents a pound.

'A PRETTY BLEAK TIME'

"The low prices have just made a bad situation worse," said Buddy Adamson, director of the cotton division for the Alabama Farmers Federation. "It's a pretty bleak time."

Faced with forecasts that the drought will continue unabated through the summer, federal and state officials have taken emergency steps to help thousands of farmers.

Late last month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture named parts of Alabama, Florida, Nebraska and New Mexico as agricultural disaster areas due to drought, making farmers eligible for emergency low-interest loans.

The drought is estimated to cost the U.S. economy between $7 billion and $9 billion a year. In particularly bad years, such as 1980 and 1988, the figures are much higher.

Sixty-four of Alabama's 67 counties and 41 of Florida's 67 counties are covered by the federal disaster relief. The USDA also said it would allow farmers in drought-stricken areas to harvest hay on land set aside for federal conservation.

"The drought has devastated many farmers and ranchers," Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman said. "This additional emergency relief measure will provide some hay for producers who need it most."

In Alabama, state officials already were buying hay from neighboring Mississippi and distributing it to farmers in the areas hardest hit by drought.

Georgia has implemented harsh water rationing throughout the state. Nearly all the state's counties qualified last year for federal relief with at least a 30 percent average crop loss.

Although farmers are grateful for the government assistance, they know that the answer to their prayers ultimately lies with Mother Nature and not Uncle Sam.

"We've just got to get some rain," Charlie Speake said as he inspected an empty rain gauge on his farm north of Eufaula.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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