Harvey was hard on farms, too

It wasn’t just the cities like Houston that suffered a lot of damage from Harvey.

Harvey did more than transform cityscape by turning highways into rivers; It also upended life for farmers and ranchers across dozens of counties that Gov. Greg Abbott declared disaster zones. The powerful winds and rains destroyed crops, displaced livestock and disrupted trade.

Texas typically exports nearly one-fourth of the country’s wheat and a major portion of its corn and soybeans, according to the state Department of Agriculture, but a shutdown of ports ahead of Harvey halted export.

At least 1.2 million beef cows graze in in 54 counties Abbott had added to his disaster list as of Tuesday, according to Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service. State and industry officials did not immediately have data on how many were lost, but news reports and social media have circulated images of wandering cattle and dramatic rescues of the animals from floodwaters.

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Harvey also affected cropland. Texas rice producers had already harvested about 75 percent of the year’s rice crop, according to the Agriculture Department, but wind and water likely damaged storage bins, leading to more crop loses.

Harvey hit cotton farmers like Reed particularly hard, destroying their prospects of a banner year. While of region’s crops — corn, for instance, were out of the ground before the storm hit, cotton was another story.

“A lot of cotton didn’t get harvested,” said Gene Hall, a spokesman for the Texas Farm Bureau. “We know that they were racing the clock trying to beat landfall…I think anything left on the clock, you got to consider that a total loss.”

In Matagorda County, for instance, just 70 percent of cotton had been harvested, while only 35 percent was out of the ground in Wharton County, Hall said.

What’s more, high-speed winds ripped apart cotton modules — machines that pound processed cotton into rectangular blocks — leaving them strewn about fields and gin yards.

You can help farmers and ranchers affected by Harvey via the State of Texas Agriculture Relief Fund. There are a lot of small farms in the path of Harvey, and a lot of farms that supply Houston’s restaurants. One example of that is Gundermann Acres, which was completely wiped out. They farm vegetables – you’ve probably eaten some of their produce – so they can’t get crop insurance. You can help them out here if you want. As with everything else, it’s going to take all of these folks some time to recover, too.

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