By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, October 11, 2024

SOUTHEAST U.S. — The USDA Dairy Market News and other reports gathered by Farmshine indicate significant disruption to dairy plant operations, fluid milk production volumes, supply, transportation, distribution, infrastructure, and demand across Florida, the greater Southeast and part of the MidAtlantic region in the wake of Hurricane Helene.

This is now compounded by evacuations just 11 days after Helene’s destruction as the potential category five Hurricane Milton is forecast to make landfall Oct. 9 and 10 to affect the entire Florida Peninsula with storm surge north into Georgia and the Carolinas.

Farmers in hard-hit counties throughout the Southeast are helping others in their communities even as they face the devastation of their own livelihoods. 

One poultry farmer who lost everything his family worked to build over decades in Jeff Davis County, Georgia was interviewed by the Georgia Agribusiness Council. He put it direct: “We need help. If the government can reach out and help other countries, they need to help this country. We need the help, desperately… as quick as we can get it. We want to farm. We want to build back.”

A big pressing need in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee is hay and feed for dairy and beef cattle. Also needed are fencing supplies, chainsaws, water pumps, generators, TPost, wire, gas jugs, gloves, hammers, water troughs, fence staples, basically items to care for or contain livestock.

Farmer-to-farmer efforts are popping up across the Northeast, Midwest and Southwest to assemble donations of hay, feed, fencing, and other livestock related items and to secure funds and trucking to get the items to drop points manned by local contacts, churches, FFA chapters, extension, and volunteer organizations like Samaritan’s Purse working in the area. 

One example is the Northwest Pennsylvania Hay Drive assembling loads for the WNC Regional Livestock Center drop point in Canton, N.C. (call or text Brittany Eisenman at 814.221.4291 if you have hay, trucking, or funds to donate or contact Mark Muir with Erie County Farm Bureau).

In addition, former dairy farmer Mark Yeazel of Ohio put a load together to drive to an East Tennessee FFA chapter drop point, working with Samaritan’s Purse.

FFA chapters in affected counties are organizing drop points in at least eight counties. Hay deliveries are also being received at Greene County Fairgrounds on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons from 2 to 6 pm., or call the University of Tennessee Extension office at 423.798.1710 or text 423-552-4073.

Some farm supply stores in the region are also taking donations by phone to amplify their ongoing efforts to get essential farm and livestock supplies where they are needed.

For the affected farmers and rural communities, the North Carolina Extension has posted a Farm Helpline to talk to someone who understands farm stress, by calling or texting 844-325-3276 for support, available 24/7.

For other information on how to assist victims, visit the American Farm Bureau’s Hurricane Helene Webpage at https://www.fb.org/issue/hurricane-helene

American Farm Bureau economist Danny Munch release an important preliminary economic analysis: Hurricane Helene Devastes Rural Southeast