The 750-acre citrus industry here is dominated by small part-time farmers each growing between 100 and 1,500 trees. Farmers said that excluding labor, it costs $1,500 an acre to replant and about four years before the first harvest. Louisiana State University farm extension agent Alan Vaughn gave Militant reporters a tour of the region November 29.
Patty Vogt, 51, produces cattle and citrus on 120 acres with her brother. They are fourth-generation farmers in Nairn, among the hardest hit areas. Vogt was only able to rescue 54 of her original 300 cattle herd, which faced 20 foot high flood waters. The parish lost a total of 7,000 of its 10,000 cattle.
Vogt told the Militant that she had to threaten action against a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) official if he didn't give her a pallet of donated hay out of a truckload that he initially insisted was already spoken for. The flood waters killed all the grass in the pastures leaving the cows with nothing to eat.
After asking and receiving no help from the local government to clear a path on the top of the levee where her surviving herd was stranded, Vogt said she rented a track-hoe for $1,600 and with two hired hands cleared a path to where the cattle could be loaded into trailers and transported out. Vogt said the USDA's Farm Service Agency was offering help to replace some fencing and water troughs, but to receive a rebuilding loan they wanted her land to be put up for collateral, which she refused to do.
“I'm in the worst fix that I've ever been in all my life,” said Arthur Becnel, 81, a fifth-generation farmer who produces citrus, Japanese persimmons, pecans, and ornamentals on seven acres. He figures he's lost between $20,000 and $25,000 in crop damage. This includes 70 percent of his citrus and persimmon crop that was ready to harvest. Becnel said he hasn't had any income since Katrina except for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) standard payments of $2,000 and $2,350.
He has yet to see any insurance money to cover repairs to his storm-damaged greenhouse and barn, and has been turned down for assistance from his homeowners insurance company and FEMA. Needing to get back into production, he paid to repair the greenhouse out of his own pocket.
M.J. Barrois, another part-time citrus farmer, told the Militant that the cost of grafted trees for the fruit field are currently $14, up from $10 growers paid before the storms. Some bigger nurseries are taking advantage of the situation. Barrois said the farmers had a local cooperative at one time to get a better price on the products they needed but it failed because “the people in charge weren't farmers.”