North Mississippi farmers and ranchers received between 15-20 inches of rain in less than 24 hours last week.

That much heavy rainfall and wind caused immediate damage to crops. But the water spilling out of riverbanks in the North Delta over to New Albany and Ripley and down to Yalobusha and Calhoun counties quickly caused flooding, crippling the crops that were left and devastating homes and businesses.

Bill O’Neal has been managing Allendale Planting Company in Bolivar County for more than 20 years. During that time, he has never experienced the amount of rainfall last week’s storm brought to the area.

“We’re still waiting on the water to go down to see what crops we will be able to recover and what our plan is going to be moving forward,” O’Neal said. “Everything is unknown right now because we are continuing to receive rain.”

A natural disaster of this magnitude will have a negative economic impact for the state as rural communities and businesses will take a hit. Farmers will have to determine whether to replant the same crop, try to grow something new since the planting season for most crops has already passed, or report a total loss.

“It’s definitely going to have a big economic impact,” Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation North Mississippi Vice President and Bolivar County farmer Donald Gant said. “About a fifth of our crop is under water which could potentially cost us up to a quarter of a million dollars. And we’re lucky because there are some folks whose entire crop is under water.”

The farmers who have to replant their fields will take a loss because they are still responsible for their overhead costs, like seed, fertilizer and equipment payments.

“We’ve applied herbicides and fertilizer to the crops under water, so we’ve already got a good bit of money in what is planted,” O’Neal said. “Now we don’t know if the crop is going to survive. If it does survive, we don’t know how much of the stuff we applied is still actually in the ground, so we will have to conduct extra tests at an additional cost throughout the growing season to make sure the crops have everything they need.”

If the farmers do have to replant, their growing season will be shorter which will affect their crop yield.

“What we replant will produce approximately half of what it would have, but at least it will make something,” Gant said. “We work to feed the world every day, so I hope consumers acknowledge these hardships and pray for us during this time.”