THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 3, 1995 TAG: 9509030065
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JODY R. SNIDER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
When Isle of Wight County farmer Cecil Byrum looks at his fields, he sees dollars dissipating in the dust.
Peanuts are scorched, cotton's wilted and soybeans are fried.
``It's kind of like when you were growing up, and your father used to promise you a spanking. . . . You never knew how bad it was going to be until it was over with. We know we're whipped. We just don't know how bad until we get it all in.''
Mother Nature is expected to give Virginia peanut farmers a $30 million licking. Cotton farmers could take a $12 million hit, and the soybean crop is expected to be about half its normal size.
For 26 straight days - from July 12 through Aug. 6 - Southeastern Virginia sizzled, with temperatures reaching the 90s. Area rainfall prior to Friday night was 9 inches below normal, according to the National Weather Service.
As a result, local farmers are comparing this year's losses to that of 1980, when peanut farmers got $26 million for their 100,000-acre crop, compared with $80 million in a normal year, said Russell Schools, executive secretary of the Virginia Peanut Growers Association.
``The average peanut farmer needs 2,400 pounds per acre to break even,'' Schools said. ``That won't happen this year. There's going to be a whole bunch of folks who are going to be hurting.''
Peanuts are planted in early spring. During the summer, they put down a thick tap root, and, in late summer, the plant ``pegs'' - sprouts runners from the tap root and produces more peanuts. Dry weather prevented pegging.
In Southampton, the largest peanut-producing county in the nation, 20 percent of the 28,000 acres of peanuts have suffered extensively, Extension Agent Wes Alexander said.
Southampton County farmer Larry Whitley said he's lost 40 percent of his 250-acre peanut crop, 30 percent of his 650-acre cotton crop. Spider mites also have been a major problem this season, and Whitley has spent $3,700 to save what is left of his peanuts.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency recently gave emergency approval to peanut farmers to spray Capture, a new chemical currently awaiting federal registration, on peanuts.
``I don't get upset with nature because you can't do anything about it,'' he said. ``You look after the crop as best you can. . . .''
Some Southampton farmers have given up on peanut fields, and some farmers in Isle of Wight and Suffolk are considering the same thing, said Clifton Slade, Suffolk extension agent. ``Some peanut fields have no peanuts in them - maybe 200 to 300 pounds per acre,'' he said. ``That's just not worth harvesting.''
Isle of Wight Extension Agent Robert Goerger said: ``At best, it's going to be one of the worst years growers have ever had. The bad thing is that all this is coming on the heels of a bad crop in 1993, when farmers in this county lost millions to heat and dry weather.''
Byrum said, ``It takes five to 10 years to make up for one bad year.''
Many farmers, he said, borrow money every year, using little more than high hopes of a good crop as collateral. Slade said farmers this year will be selling timber lots, their land or maybe getting out of the business altogether to escape financial disaster.
Things are no better in the cotton fields.
Cotton is worse off than peanuts in Southampton, Alexander said. In early July, farmers were looking at about two bales per acre. Now, Alexander said, they are hoping for one. A bale weighs about 500 pounds.
G. Thomas Alphin, manager of Commonwealth Gin in Windsor, said he believes the average cotton farmer will produce about 600 pounds an acre.
``Compared to last year's crop of 944 pounds per acre, it's going to be disappointing,'' he said. ``But if everyone can make an average of 600 pounds, it will pay the bills.''
Expecting a hefty return on the crop that normally shuns dry weather, state cotton farmers this year increased acreage from 43,000 to 107,000. Even so, Alphin said his gin will see only two-thirds as much cotton as it saw in 1994.
Slade said: ``We've already lost $6.8 million in peanuts, $6.3 million in cotton and $1.5 million in soybeans in Suffolk We're hoping for half a crop on each.''
Byrum, who farms 1,300 acres near Zuni with his father, accepts the occupational hazard.
``It's disheartening to work and see your net worth erode like this,'' he said. ``But that's part of farming. Always has been. Always will be.'' by CNB