The window for Arkansas farmers to replant soybeans is closing after flooding drowned thousands of acres of Delta farmland.
Heavy rain June 29 caused about 75,000 acres of soybeans, cotton, rice and sorghum to be flooded, according to the University of Arkansas’ Cooperative Extension Service.
About 25,000 acres still have water on them, said Jeremy Ross, soybean agronomist for the University of Arkansas System’s Agriculture Division.
“Just about the time [farmers] get ready to go back to the fields, here comes another shower,” Ross said. “The ones who have insurance are toying with taking the insurance claim. It’s on a field-by-field basis.”
Soybeans are more affected by flooding than rice or cotton. Ross said it’s getting to the point in the growing season where replanting soybeans will no longer be possible. The last day farmers could plant and still qualify for some crop insurance programs was Tuesday, he said, and because soybeans take about 120 days to mature, frost could pose a threat later in the year to late-planted fields.
Yields also decline by about 50 percent when soybeans are planted this late in the year, Ross said.
“We’ve already been taking a reduction in yield starting June 15,” he said. “Once you get to the first of July, it almost doubles.”
About 3.4 million acres of soybeans were planted in Arkansas this year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agriculture Statistics Service. While flooding affected a small amount of the state’s total soybean crop, the damage was intense in those areas.
“Luckily it’s a small area, but the flooding has been absolutely devastating to the guys it has affected,” said Matt King, director of market information and economics for the Arkansas Farm Bureau. “You have farms who have lost just about everything.”
King said because soybean prices have dropped to about $10 per bushel after fetching $15 or more per bushel in recent years, farmers might be further discouraged from replanting.
“You may even be planting it at a loss at this point,” he said. “Those prices are probably going to go even lower, and that’s going to prevent farmers from replanting.”
Earlier this month, Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe sent a letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack requesting a “Secretarial Disaster Designation” for 10 counties in the state — Cross, Independence, Jackson, Lee, Lonoke, Monroe, Prairie, St. Francis, White and Woodruff.
“Such a designation will allow the Farm Service Agency to make emergency loans available to the eligible farmers whose lives and livelihoods have been detrimentally affected by this natural disaster,” Beebe wrote in the letter. “Please give this request the highest priority, so that assistance to the affected farmers may be expedited.”
Butch Calhoun, Arkansas’ agriculture secretary, said the loans could be used if banks didn’t want to take a risk on farmers with fields in the flooded area.
The designation also could be the first step toward federal disaster relief under the farm bill, if Congress acts, he said.
“If Congress sees a need, there could be some disaster money later on,” Calhoun said. “There’s always a possibility.”