As Mona Barfield inspects the hurricane damage to her family’s multi-generational pecan farm south of Fairhope, she stops to wonder how much longer Baldwin County farmers will continue producing Alabama’s official state nut.
Hurricane Sally provided a devastating gut punch to the coastal farmers: Hundreds of pecan trees are destroyed and this year’s crop in Baldwin County, which is the state’s No. 1 producer of the nut, is gone. Unlike other damaged crops that can be replanted within a year – soybeans, peanuts, and cotton – pecan trees can take a decade before they start producing.
Barfield manages B&B Pecan Company, which completely lost close to 300 of the farm’s 1,142 trees. Other trees were “mangled,” and will require pruning in the months and years ahead.
‘They are brave’
Very limited relief is currently available to pecan farmers affected by the September 16 hurricane, as farmers wait on more details about the federal support that can assist them in removing damaged trees and planting anew. Statistics on the damage has also been slow coming, and farmers are waiting on insurance adjusters before they begin removing debris. A burn ban, in place until at least October 31, is also preventing farmers from ridding their acres of broken trees that have been part of families for generations.
Officials are encouraging farmers to contact their Farm Service Agency (FSA) offices, and check with the USDA’s farmers.gov website to see what kind of disaster aid they can qualify for.
Farmers do not expect the hurricane damage will affect pricing much, as the crop has done well elsewhere in the Southeast where warm weather allows the trees to flourish. Iconic retailers, like Priester’s Pecans in Fort Deposit, and other smaller mom-and-pop shops in other parts of the state, are not expected to hike the prices on their pecan pies and other treats due to the storm.
But in Baldwin County, the reeling pecan farmers are assessing damage that few farmers have seen before. They met with U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue on Monday and pleaded for help during a roundtable discussion inside a large warehouse at a badly damaged nursery in Loxley.
“The safety net was typically built for commodity crops like peanut and corn, and not so much for pecans,” said Perdue, while speaking with reporters. “We have insurance programs for trees, but many growers do not feel it’s an economic investment right now."
He added, “It’s a generational crop. It’s at least 10 years before a (pecan tree) can get an economic return at all. These people who are in the pecan business and who will replant, boy, they are brave. It’s a great crop and we do it really well down in the Southeast. I wish them all the best.”
Perdue, the former governor of Georgia, said the damage he saw to the Baldwin County pecan trees was like what he witnessed in Georgia after Hurricane Michael in 2018. That storm had a devastating effect on U.S. pecan production. In 2018, for the first time, Mexico became the global pecan production leader and Georgia – the No. 1 U.S. state in producing the nut – was eclipsed by New Mexico.
Also complicating the U.S. market is the ongoing trade wars with China and tariffs by the Trump administration that has affected many farm products.
“Our export market is not great right now,” said Brian Wilkins, a research associate for the horticulture department at the Gulf Coast Research and Extension Center at Auburn University. “China is not buying like they were and if China does not buy, that is about 150 million pounds dumped back on the domestic market that will have to go somewhere and the price will stay down anyway.”
Generational crop
Baldwin and Mobile counties, due to their tropical climate, are fertile ground for growing pecans. An estimated 3 million pounds are produced each year within the two counties, account for over 50% of the state’s overall pecan crop. Trees can grower faster in the coastal area than in other places of Alabama.
Still, that growth takes time and the storm has some worried that the farmers might just walk away from the orchards. Comparisons are already popping up about Hurricane Sally having a transformational effect on Alabama’s pecan industry as Hurricane Frederic did in 1979, which was the last storm that left widespread damage to the orchards.
That impact, Barfield said, affected an entire generation of farmers. Instead of utilizing crop insurance to replant, farmers sold their properties and their children moved on into other professions. The orchards were replaced by subdivisions in a county that continues to be Alabama’s fastest growing.
Barfield’s family is an example of the transition. B&B Pecan was founded in 1956 by Barfield’s grandfather, Calvin Brown, and her parents – Clarence and Sandra Bishop. Over the past 64 year, the business grew to include a retail shop that includes over 100 items that are also sold through mail orders to individuals and corporations.
Wilkins said the problem with replanting a damaged pecan farm is that many farmers are aging, and likely would not see a fully production orchard until they are elderly.
He added, “The younger (farmers) will replant.”
But how many of the younger generations will be willing to invest in pecan farming in Alabama? Gary Underwood, who farms 115 acres of pecan trees in Summerdale and Foley and who called this year’s crop “a total loss,” said he’s not sure if he will still be farming by the time a newly-planted crop matures. He, like other pecan farmers, inherited his father’s orchard and expanded it over the years to a current operation that includes a shelling plant that enables him to package and market his crop.
“I’ll hopefully be retired by then,” said Underwood, when asked how long he expects his orchards to return to their pre-Hurricane Sally production. Underwood is the husband of current Baldwin County Commissioner Billie Jo Underwood.
“We have 12 nieces and nephews,” he said. “(Maybe) one of them wants to continue on with the pecan shelling plant.”
‘There will be a pecan industry’
Hurricane Sally’s combination of heavy rainfall that lasted for days before the storm’s eyewall came slowly ashore over Gulf Shores, created “the worst” devastation to the county’s pecan trees that Underwood said he’s ever seen. That includes, he said, Hurricane Camille – a powerful Category 5 hurricane that killed over 250 people in 1969 after it slammed into coastal Mississippi and destroyed tens of thousands of homes in Alabama.
“If you get that much water into the ground ahead of the wind, and the trees are loaded with pecans, it’s a recipe for disaster,” said Wilkins. He said Hurricane Sally struck right before harvest, which typically occurs from October to December.
Jerry Ingram, president of the Alabama Pecan Growers Association, said the storm produced a “triple whammy” on pecan growers: The loss of this year’s crop, the hundreds of uprooted and permanently damaged trees and the disruption to future harvests by the trees that survived the storm.
“Mother Nature gives the tree a natural mechanism to bud out and sprout out again and, a lot of times, you’ll see … a tree (that buds) in the spring will come out in the fall so that means next year’s crop is killed the following year,” said Ingram. “The tree thinks it’s spring again, you and lose the next year crop.”
But despite the devastation, Ingram and Wilkins are confident that pecan farming will rebound in Baldwin County. Ingram said that improvements in agricultural technology and crop research has been beneficial for farmers, adding that “there is not a better time to get into the pecan business.”
He said that for future farmers, especially in the coastal area where hurricanes occur, diversification will be important.
“Maybe for some people, you don’t want to bet the farm and plant (just pecans),” said Ingram. “There has been hurricanes and tornadoes that have blown a lot of trees out and people haven’t replanted as much as they probably did in the 70s and 80s, and I think the pecan tree inventory has gotten low in Alabama. If people got into pecans today as part of their crops on the farm, I think there is a demand. Unlike peaches and other crops, pecans are stable. They don’t spoil so you don’t have to have a lot of refrigeration and that type of thing and they are easier to handle.”
“Once you hook a shaker to a tree to start putting (the nuts) into a bag, you don’t have to touch it by hand,” Ingram said.
Wilkins said he feels bullish about pecan farming despite Hurricane Sally’s impact.
“We are not dead,” he said. “I know people think we are. We are hurting. It’s pretty much a total crop lost. But we are not wiped out and it will take us a few years to recover. But we’re still in the game and we will still be here growing pecans. There will be a pecan industry.”
Source - https://www.al.com