Farmers faced with historic flooding after record heat
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ST. MATTHEWS, S.C. (WOLO) — There’s a community of people, beyond city boundaries, who depend on the land for their livelihood. The flooding two weeks ago could not have come at a worse time for our farmers. “People don’t understand what a catastrophic loss it is when we have a year like this,” St. Matthews farmer Kent Wannamaker says. Instead of harvesting his peanuts and cotton, Wannamaker is playing a waiting game. He has fought extreme drought, and now he’s wading through what’s left of 13 inches of rain, to see if he’ll be able to salvage any of his 25-hundred acres of crops. “This year, 2015, will go down as the year of extremes. We go from drought to flood and both are going to have a tremendous financial impact on farms across the state,” South Carolina Department of Agriculture Commissioner Hugh Weathers says. Weathers says initial estimates show at least $300 million in crop loss. “And I think that’s going to be a conservative number.” Commissioner Weathers says the number will rise, as farmers are visited by their crop insurance adjusters. They have to decide whether it’s worth it to harvest, or call it a loss. He says we won’t know the true impact until spring, but he has faith in this group of people. “They’re a resilient group, and that’s the best thing we have going.” Like thousands of other farmers in our state, Wannamaker has a very simple answer for why it’s worth all the risk. “I love it,” he says. “I don’t know how to do anything else really.” Farmers know they’re at nature’s mercy, but with drought, followed by flood, these next few weeks will really show how much they’ve truly lost.
