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More counties added to crop damage list Wednesday, Apr 25, 2007 By Rob Moritz Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - Gov. Mike Beebe on Tuesday declared a state of emergency in four more counties because of crop damage that occurred during recent record-low temperatures. With the four - Garland, Jefferson, Lincoln and Perry - there have now been 52 of the state's 75 counties declared emergencies. The declaration is designed to help in the effort to obtain assistance from the federal government for farmers who suffered crop damage during the cold snap, the governor's office said in a release. State Agriculture Director Richard Bell said Tuesday that freezing temperatures earlier this month damaged crops across the state. "It is more severe than I anticipated," Bell said. "It's much wider spread and much farther south than I thought." Corn and wheat were particularly affected by the cold temperatures, the agriculture secretary said. "Both were caught in very unusual timing," he said. "We had warm weather in March and everything took off, then we had the freeze." Bell said he attended a meeting in Clarksville last week where farmers complained about losing their peaches, berries and grape crops in the freezing temperatures. Many farmers around the state also have reported losing entire fields of corn and wheat, he said. To show how bad the wheat crop was hit, Bell said that before the freeze, 70 percent of the state's wheat crop was "rated as good to excellent." The rating is now 14 percent at "good to excellent," 22 percent very poor, 42 percent poor and 22 percent fair, he said. Dotson Collins, state executive director for the Arkansas Farm Service Agency, said Tuesday that agents are still assessing crop damage across the state. "We're still receiving damage assessment reports and it will probably be middle of next week before we have an estimate of damage," he said. Matt DeCample, spokesman for the governor, said additional counties could be added to the disaster declaration over the next few days as more reports are filed. The other 48 counties already on the disaster list, include: Arkansas, Benton, Boone, Bradley, Carroll, Clark, Clay, Cleburne, Cleveland, Conway, Craighead, Crawford, Crittenden, Cross, Faulkner, Fulton, Franklin, Greene, Hot Spring, Independence, Izard, Jackson, Johnson, Lafayette, Lawrence, Lee, Logan, Lonoke, Madison, Marion, Mississippi, Monroe, Newton, Poinsett, Pope, Prairie, Randolph, Sebastian, Scott, Searcy, Sharp, St. Francis, Stone, Van Buren, Washington, White, Woodruff and Yell counties. |
