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Farmers face crop losses from Hurricane Matthew

Flooding and storm damage from Hurricane Matthew has brought harvest to a standstill for many farmers in the southeast.

Jamie Caudle farms about 35 miles east of Charlotte on the South Carolina border.

He says the storm brought several inches of rainfall to his area.  “Twenty to thirty miles from me we’re pretty hard into soybean harvest right now,” he says.  “It’s the most critical time to be harvesting soybeans and probably the worst time to have a lot of rain and flooding like we have now.”

He tells Brownfield he should be able to resume harvest within the next few days.  But, farmers hit hardest by the storm still have several days before they’ll be back in the field.  “Hopefully we’ll still be able to harvest some of our crops,” he says.  “As far as here in my county most of the crops should be okay here.  But as you get further east – I’m pretty confident there is going to be yield loss in soybean yields and quality damage will be another issue.”

He says cotton harvest had just started as well – and those producers will likely see crop damage and yield losses.

Caudle says they’ve finished corn harvest and had just started on soybeans.  He says corn yields were slightly below average and soybean yields have been about average so far this year.

AUDIO: Jamie Caudle, North Carolina