Unexpected severe drought plagues parts of NC, withering crops

WHITEVILLE — After the driest June in recorded North Carolina history, farmers across the state are coping with the impacts of intense drought.

According to the US Drought Monitor, 22 North Carolina counties are experiencing severe drought, while one county — Columbus County , a rural, agriculturally driven county in the southeastern part of the state — is in an extreme drought.

From early June to mid-July, Whiteville, Columbus County’s biggest population center, received 1.07 inches of rain, a 24-year low.

The suddenness of this drought is what surprises the state’s drought experts the most.

“If you asked somebody on Memorial Day, ‘Are we at any risk of drought?’ they would have called you crazy,” Corey Davis , drought expert at the North Carolina State Climate Office, told Carolina Public Press .

“It wasn’t one of these typical droughts, where it just kind of creeps up month after month and gets slowly worse,” Klaus Albertin , chair of the North Carolina Drought Management Advisory Council, told CPP.  “This has been so sudden.”

On July 2, 10 counties were classified as experiencing severe or extreme drought. By July 9, that number had jumped to 22.

These counties fall into three geographic clusters: the southeast, central Coastal Plains, and the northwest Piedmont.

• Southeastern counties in severe and extreme drought: Columbus, Robeson, Bladen, Pender
• Central Coastal Plains counties in severe drought: Bertie, Martin, Pitt, Beaufort, Craven, Pamlico, Lenoir, Greene, Wayne
• Northwest Piedmont counties in severe drought: Surry, Stokes, Forsyth, Yadkin, Wilkes, Alexander, Iredell, Davie, Catawba, Caldwell

This past week brought a few inches of rain to the state, but not enough to pull the counties like Columbus out of their deficit, and entirely too late for corn farmers .

Drought impact on farmers

“(The drought) hit at the worst possible time for corn,” Davis said. “June is the month where corn is going through some of these development stages, where it’s very sensitive to the amount of moisture that it has.”

“The corn is basically decimated,” Gary Lanier , Columbus County’s economic development director, told CPP. “You look out in the field and see brown spokes. It’s killing our farmers.”

It’s too late in the season to replant, and many farmers are looking to crop insurance to keep them from going bankrupt. Still, Lanier explained, “crop insurance only covers 70% of your average production for five years. Farmers are still going to lose something like $200/acre.”

About 100 miles north of Whiteville, in rural Greene County, the Farm Service Agency is currently discussing a disaster declaration.

According to Hannah Massengill , field crops extension agent for Greene County, farmers there expect anywhere from a 70% to 80% loss on the corn crop.

“(The emergency) declaration would initiate various support mechanisms for our farmers,” Trey Cash , economic development director for Greene County, told CPP in an email. “While this assistance is greatly valued, it’s important to acknowledge that our farmers prefer to sustain their livelihoods through their hard work and successful harvests.”

“The full scope of the drought’s impact will not be entirely clear until the harvest of various crops, but early indications show significant reductions in corn and tobacco yields,” Cash wrote.

“Given that most of our farms are family-owned, a decrease in farm income directly impacts family income. As a result, families will adopt more stringent budgetary measures, and farms will limit their expenditures to essential needs.

“This conservative spending will inevitably affect local businesses, including truck and equipment dealers, fertilizer suppliers, hardware stores and fuel providers, as they experience a decline in sales until the full extent of crop yield losses, particularly in tobacco, is better understood.”

Tobacco is North Carolina’s third largest agricultural export, after pork and broiler meat.

“On a local level, we expect to see a strategic diversification of crops to mitigate risk. Our farmers are exploring alternative crops, such as increased vegetable production, to broaden their agricultural portfolios,” Cash wrote.

As of now, Massengill estimates that only about 3% of Greene County’s farmers irrigate their fields, which can help mitigate against drought conditions.

The number is similarly low in Columbus County.

“We don’t have many farmers in the county that irrigate,” Lydia Miles , field crops extension agent for Columbus County, told CPP. “Most years, it just doesn’t clear the cost versus benefit for them. In a year like this, though, it definitely would have helped.”

According to Cash, more farmers are considering investments in advanced irrigation technology.

Farmers are also dealing with the drought’s impact on hay growth and pastures, particularly in the western part of the state.

“We have a family farm, my son, myself and my father, a big cattle operation in Wilkes County,” Brian Parker , a Wilkes County farmer and the mountain region representative of the state Department of Agriculture’s Soil and Water Conservation Commission, told CPP.

“We’ve already had to move some cattle out of some pastures and put them in some other facilities. Because of the drought situation, they don’t have anything to eat in some of the pastures we had them in. That does affect the gain on the animals. The gain will be significantly less on the calf crop this year.”

Impact on drinking water

Because of the drought’s suddenness, crops have been hit much harder than drinking water supply. Reservoirs and aquifers are, for the most part, still full from the heavy rains in May.

Only five voluntary water conservation notices have been issued on account of the drought throughout the state, including one in Whiteville.

“They have put in water-use restrictions for watering lawns, they’re asking people to do only full loads of laundry and restaurants to only serve water when requested,” Miles said.

In Wilkes County, in the western part of the state, the level of the Kerr Scott Reservoir dropped just one inch below the normal level on Tuesday for the first time all season.

In Forsyth County, home to Winston-Salem and the largest population of any county currently under severe drought conditions, only one out of the three factors needed to trigger the emergency water management plan has occurred: the drought declaration itself. The level of system demand and the flow of the Yadkin River remain unaffected.

Other health impacts

Although most public water utilities are not under stress, drought carries a host of public health impacts.

Lower water levels, high water temperature, stagnant conditions, and increased salinity can cause algae blooms that impact the quality of the drinking water. Increased risk of wildfires affects air quality.

A lack of relief from extremely high temperatures — July 5 was the hottest day in Raleigh’s history, at 106 degrees Fahrenheit — adds to the climbing number of heat-related deaths.

Plus, prices of healthy, local produce have increased due to scarcity.

Mental health — particularly that of farmers — is another area where drought has a profound impact. Farmers experience suicide rates that are five times higher than average, and the numbers rise in times of drought.

“We see a lot of farmers aging out and their children not coming back in and starting to farm,” Miles said. “A lot of them say that they don’t want their child to go through farming forever, like they did. It’s labor intensive. It’s tough mentally and you just never know what each season is going to bring.”

Mercifully, this week’s rain forecast across the state is looking hopeful.

“They are forecasting some heavy rains starting Thursday,” Albertin said. “If it happens, this may be the fastest we’ve gone into and out of statewide drought without a tropical storm or hurricane being involved.”