WHARTON, Texas (KTRK) — Farmers in parts of southeast Texas are dealing with a worst-case scenario following Hurricane Beryl that they fear will only get worse.
Farmers in Wharton County are turning to new equipment.
“That’s a corn sweeper,” Tim Krenek said.
It’s a $20,000 machine that’s specially designed to handle corn corps that fell over that was shipped in from Nebraska. Krenek and another farmer bought five of them because they’re dealing with something they’ve never seen before.
“Not the whole crop,” Krenek explained. “I’ve seen certain areas get knocked down with a bad thunderstorm. This is every field out there.”
Texas A&M Agrilife Extension leaders said Hurricane Beryl caused massive damage to crops in Wharton and Matagorda counties.
“We had an excellent, excellent crop going into this storm,” county agent Corrie Bowen said.
Bowen said this is a worst-case scenario. Corn, cotton, soybeans, and rice were close to being picked.
Now, a lot of it could be lost, not only because of the damage caused by the hurricane, but the wet weather that continues to follow it because farmers can’t harvest the muddy ground.
“No, in my 26 years as a county extension agent, this is my first experience to this magnitude,” Bowen said.
Between the two counties, 235,000 acres of crops could be impacted. Farmers said that could be as much as $90 million in impacted crops.
There’s federal disaster aid and insurance, but it could take months to receive. With so much devastation, farmers explained it’s hard not to imagine the impact to us all.
“Farmers feed America,” Krenek said. “If you don’t have products out there, you’re going to have less grain, which makes your groceries go up.”
That is the reason they need the wet weather to stop so they can put machines to use. Until dry conditions return, agriculture leaders said it’s hard to know the full extent of the damage caused by Beryl.
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