LONOKE COUNTY, Ark. — Some of Arkansas’s biggest crops are in big trouble.
Rice and corn farmers around the state are sweating – not just because of their hard work – but because the weather has made this a historically bad season.
“Typically,” Collin Torian said, “rice and corn would be done and we’re shifting gears to start planting soybeans.”
But as Torian walked through his corn field Monday afternoon, signs of progress were hard to find. “You can see problems in this area, where your stand is much thinner than the rest of the field,” he said, pointing to a section of field that was full of mud, rather than corn stalks, “and that’s due to excess ground moisture, [and] not ideal temperatures.”
Torian said he plans to burn the entire field on Tuesday and plant again, because that would give him a better chance at a successful crop.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do in a very little time,” he stated. “You know, very (short) window to do it.”
His rice fields will also require a lot of work to be completed in a short amount of time. He said May 15 is a typical date for farmers to be concerned if their seeds are not in the ground, because yields tend to fall substantially every day after that. He said he had never witnessed a season as challenging as this one.
“You hear horror stories of the drought of 1980,” he said. “That’s shifted, and now we’re dealing with excess rain. And each day is a new day. No two farm years are the same, and that’s never been more evident.”
Only a third of Torian’s crop is in the ground, whereas most years, it would be done by this point. Cold weather prevented most rice farmers from working with their land at the start of the planting season, and above-average rainfall has prevented them from planting much during the latter parts of the spring. With more rain in the forecast, many farmers are debating alternate ways to use their land.
“Eventually, it gets to a point where you just have to switch gears, and you make a decision to go a different way,” Torian explained. “And it if the weather pattern continues like it has, eventually it will come to that and we will have a lot of soybeans to plant.”
Soybeans are typically the fallback crop when farmers know rice acreage and yields will be low. But soybean prices have dropped roughly 15 percent in the last few months and could fall even further if a trade war develops with China, which some fear based on President Donald Trump’s stated desire to raise tariffs on Chinese imports.
“Just about every bit of that is out of the US farmer’s hands,” Torian said, “so we have to see that, and we have to work to do what we can to protect ourselves on our end. The rest is out of our control.”
Arkansas grows more rice than any other state in the country, but experts with the University of Arkansas Department of Agriculture say 2019 is the slowest planting season in the last 25 years and that farmers have planted only half of their expected acreage. Projections for statewide yields fall with nearly every passing day.
“The weather pattern and everything that we’re facing is, is not ideal,” Torian said. “But the resiliency of the Arkansas farmer has been tested before, and we will push through.”
Torian said he has some insurance on his farm, but he expects farmers to look to Washington for help after what promises to be a difficult year. “If things continue, there are going to have to be some talks to help us with more of a safety net than what we already have right now,” he stated.