Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said Hurricane Helene has wiped out this year’s harvest and delivered a hard blow to the state’s $84-billion agriculture economy.
He was speaking at a news conference with former U.S. President Donald Trump, overed by CNN.
Separate news reports indicate half of the pecan trees have been destroyed and cotton farmers, already in trouble after droughts, have lost crops just before harvest.
Hundreds of poultry barns were damaged.
Georgia is perennially the number one state in the nation in the production of peanuts, broilers, pecans, blueberries and spring onions.
It is one of the top states for producing cotton, watermelon, peaches, eggs, cucumbers, sweet corn, bell peppers, tomatoes, cantaloupes, rye and cabbage.
In South Carolina, 95 per cent of the corn crop was in the bin and 25 per cent of soybeans were mature and being harvested.
There is scant information about the impact on North Carolina’s $100-billion agriculture industry, other than a report that a third of the greenhouses were damaged.
Previous hurricanes have flooded hog operations, drowning thousands of pigs and spilling manure from lagoons over thousands of square kilometres of flatlands along the eastern half of the state.
North Caroline’s mountain communities were the hardest hit by Hurricane Helene, killing most of the 200 people so far counted as dead.
Florida’s peanut crop was the hardest hit; the storm swept up Highway I-75 where the peanuts were in the midst of harvest.
Some farms were also hit hard by a hurricane 10 years ago.
