JAMESTOWN, Tenn. — Without rain, the pinch cattle producers such as Roger Crabtree are already feeling will be worse by early winter - when hay runs out.

“Grass is so short now, it’ll never catch up,” explained Crabtree, who maintains about 100 head - mostly cow-calf pairs - on 350 owned and leased acres in Fentress County.

He began dipping into hay storage to feed in June, at the rate of 24 rolls a week. Crabtree also feeds a little grain, which he normally saves for winter, to help with milk production.

An uncommon shower came on Aug. 8, ironic given Gov. Phil Bredesen’s plea that same day for a federal disaster declaration from Congress for six counties, including Fentress, Scott, Morgan, McMinn, Meigs and Franklin.

Franklin County is on the state line in south-central Tennessee, normally an enviable home to poultry houses, about 40,000 head of cattle and plentiful row crops: 50,000 acres of corn and soybeans and 5,000 of cotton, as well as 46,000 of hay and pasture.

This summer, however, farmers have lost about $6 million in damaged crops and early livestock sales, according to estimates collated by local ag authorities.

County Farm Service Agency (FSA) Director Lester Hayes broke down those losses, as determined by the local County Emergency Board (CEB): 70 percent loss of corn, 80 percent of soybeans and 85 percent of hay and pastureland. Each county’s board is comprised of local representatives of extension and federal ag agencies such as FSA.

He also reported heavy poultry losses due to heat, as well as some early sales of calves and cattle to liquidate stock and conserve hay.

“It’s (all) such a bad loss, I don’t know of anything they can do,” Hayes lamented for farmers.

Corn losses include mold-infested ears, many only one-third full of kernels. Many acres of corn didn’t even pollinate. Early-planted soybeans are small, though if rain started regularly, it might save late-planted soybeans.

“We’ve seen droughts before, but they usually start in August,” Hayes said, adding the majority of Franklin County has received less than 1.5 inches of rain in two months. In 27 years, he has not experienced drought this widespread since 1980; older farmers hearken back to 1954 as the worst they recall.

From the office for McMinn/Meigs FSA – about two counties north of Franklin – Director Leon Broyles reported twisting, nonproductive corn.

“It was three to four feet tall, when it should’ve been six to eight feet tall,” he said of examining fields in July.

In May, farmers had a good first hay cutting, but little to nothing for the second this summer. They, too, are feeding what they have because of what the local CEBs estimate as an 80 percent loss of viable grazing pasture.

Northern counties

The CEBs in Fentress, Scott and Morgan counties in north-central Tennessee reported 50 percent losses to row and vegetable crops, as well as hay and pasture – the first hay-cutting wasn’t that good, and a second was nonexistent. All under FSA Director Don Atkinson, all three depend heavily on beef production.

“(Producers are) not selling yet,” Atkinson reported, “but they’re having to feed hay. A week ago, pastures were burnt-out.”

Clark Range, Tenn., farmer Chester Baldwin knows he is lucky, sort of an oasis in the center of the desert. While neighbors have been deprived of rain altogether, he receives spotty showers.

Baldwin’s biggest ag investment are more than 300 acres of snap beans, which he plants in stages from April through July and harvests in the same order. His weather problems came early in the season, heavy rains and low temperatures in April, and he lost about half – up to 40 acres – of his first two or three plantings.

Baldwin isn’t even in a position to benefit from cornering the market on green beans if other farmers go bust. He has watched beans from northern states taking over the local fresh markets for years, sending more of his to the cannery.

“We don’t control the market enough around here, like we used to, to control prices like that,” he explained.

Selection

With more than half of Tennessee under at least moderate drought conditions, “it’s got to be pretty drastic a loss” to qualify for federal assistance, explained Louis Buck, state FSA executive director. Obviously, more than six counties wanted consideration.

“You might have 20 percent loss; you’ll go broke, but it isn’t going to get you disaster relief,” he explained.

Buck’s office investigates damage reports and decides, along with Tennessee Department of Agriculture, extension and other federally inked agencies, which ones meet the conditions required for the governor’s application to USDA.

Buck expects to hear something by the end of August.

If approved, assistance comes in low-interest (3.5 percent) loans on crop and hay losses, and individual applicants must have crop insurance.

“It’s not a panacea for folks in need,” he said. “They’re basically going to borrow from us and pay their fertilizer dealer.”