COPIAH COUNTY, Miss. ( WJTV ) – The recent lack of rain in Mississippi is having an impact on the state’s agriculture.

Officials with KG Farms in Copiah County said the dry and hot conditions are making the effects of last year’s extreme drought worse.

Andy Shannon, the owner of the farm, said rainfall during the spring helped re-soak the ground, but they’re experiencing fertility problems with many crops. He said cotton and soybeans were impacted the most.

The farm lost up to $200 an acre last year, and Shannon expects that loss to be greater this year with the dry weather and market prices.

“We just really don’t know. I mean, it may be years before we know the damage that’s been caused from last year. And then you take the year before that we had extreme wet. So, you go from one extreme to the other. We had crops rotting in a field in 2022. And you jump over in 2023 and everything dries up, burns up, and then you jump over to 2024, hoping you’re going to have a better year and, you know, just depend on where you’re at,” said Shannon.

The National Weather Service (NWS) in Jackson said widespread drought isn’t likely, and parts of the state are in a rainfall deficiency.

“Overall, we’re talking about deficits that are only an inch or two below normal for the most part. And we are in our rainy season. And so, this sort of stacks up pretty quickly when we do get rain. Last week was fairly dry. We’ve seen some scattered showers return over the last day or two. But that rainy season will persist probably until the end of September,” said Logan Poole, a meteorologist with the NWS.

The NWS expects next week will likely be dry, but they do expect more rainfall by the end of the month.

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