At these updates, you will normally hear a lot of specific data. When it comes to agriculture, we don’t have much data yet, but I will tell you what we do know.
The parts of the state that were hit by Helene have a are mainly livestock, trees, forage, poultry. We have also heard of significant damage to cotton and pecans. There have also been reports of produce losses in several counties.
We know that infrastructure has taken a big hit. For farms, infrastructure is fencing, drainage, storage structure, production structures.
Power outages has then strained poultry and livestock operations, dairies, feed mills, and food manufacturers, which have had to run on backup generators. We are working through SCEMD to manage those potential impacts.
Clemson Extension agents are out in the fields helping individual farmers assess damage.
We have attempted to contact all Food manufacturers, feed manufacturers, retail food establishments, dairies, and produce farms that our agency regulates to determine how they have been impacted. We want to reiterate it’s important that they respond or reach out if they have suffered damage, compromised food/feed products, etc. If you fall within this category, please reach out to your regional inspectors.
We know you may have seen empty shelves in some grocery stores. We are not, at this time, concerned about the food supply more broadly being affected by damage to farms. These are localized impacts, not systemic or nationwide.
In the coming days and weeks, we are going to continue to make farmers aware of resources coming from federal and state partners in agriculture.
Farmers are residents too. We want to make sure they are aware of and benefitting from the same state or federal resources as every other resident here.
Between the drought, Debby, and now Helene, agriculture in every part of the state has been affected.
Farmers are, and always have been, resilient. Sometimes resilience has negative consequences. Right now, they are out in their fields fixing and repairing rather than asking for help based on resources available.
Resources:
USDA Natural Resources Conservation Services that provides fencing repair
USDA Farm Service Agency—emergency loans
Crop insurance is not like homeowners insurance. As we have learned through previous disasters…
Like others, we are watching to see if Congress comes in for special session