'Worst thing I've ever seen': Farmers report crop damage in Georgia

ATLANTA -- As daylight arrived Thursday, the full extent of damage Hurricane Michael did to Georgia's farms began to come into view. Early reports are still arriving to the state agriculture commissioner's office, which will soon put a dollar value on the losses.

As feared earlier in the week, the state's large cash crops of cotton, peanuts and pecans, collectively $2 billion to the Georgia economy, were particularly vulnerable, because they were in the midst of harvest. In southwest Georgia at the Florida line, the storm arrived still classified as a Category 3 storm, with winds of at least 111 mph -- strong enough to not just swamp crops still in the field, but to damage structures.

Cotton and squash crops were reported damaged in Moultrie, as well as damage to more than 50 poultry houses, where chickens are raised, in counties across South Georgia. One dairy was having generator problems.

Early County farmer Phil Buckhalter, 57, raced Michael, harvesting cotton until he had to stop at 3 a.m. and resign himself to the storm. He awoke Thursday morning to devastation.

"It's the worst thing I've ever seen in my life," he said by phone as he and his wife drove around their hundreds of acres of cotton, peanuts and cattle trying to see just how bad it was. "We've dodged them for years, but we didn't dodge this one."

The cotton he's seen so far was soggy and littering the ground, stripped from the plants, ruined. He has 900 acres of cotton plants there, not far from the Alabama border. Buckhalter, along with his son and one helper, was only able to get about 40 of those acres picked before the storm hit.

Trees are down all over his and his neighbors' properties, with one big live oak landing on the Buckhalters' house. He's worried some may have fallen and broken fences keeping in the cattle.

"Me and my wife are riding around right now and trying to check cows," he said. "It's terrible."

State Rep. Clay Pirkle, who has cotton farm land in Turner and Pulaski counties, said he could hardly tell the difference in what cotton he picked and what Michael stole.

"For me, the cotton crop is as bad as it gets," he said.

Up in Fort Valley, a hot spot for pecan production, farmer Trent Mason was blunt about what he was seeing.

"It's going to be devastating for the pecan industry," he said.

State Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black reported this week that around the state, only 5 percent of the state's pecans have been harvested, and about 15 percent of the cotton crop.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, the former Georgia governor, assured state officials the federal government would help to restore the businesses after the hurricane damage has been tallied.

Story Filed By Cox Newspapers

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