Farming is all Jamie Burgess knows. He has worked this same land since kindergarten.
“I’ve been driving a tractor since I was six years old. My daddy used to get me out of school to drive a tractor.”
And 44 years later he is still driving one.
He’s already planted corn and is getting the fields, 80 miles north of Charleston, ready for the rest of the crops.
“Behind that corn, I’ve already sprayed and weeds are dying. And it's going to be grain sorghum back there.”
Burgess has recently scaled back because of tough times. He cut off his home internet, cable and landline telephone. After back-to-back seasons of bad weather and low crop prices he needs to trim costs. Last winter nearly three feet of rain drowned his soybeans and he wasn’t able to sell many. But it hasn’t just been one bad season for farmers in South Carolina.
“Three years ago I broke even, year before last I lost some money. And last year i lost serious money. And it is hard when you aren’t getting a paycheck. It’s really hard.”
The state Agriculture Departure estimates farmers lost more than 300 million dollars in crops. It’s not just South Carolina -- producers in places like Iowa, Missouri and Texas are also hurting. Farmers across the country aren’t expected to make as much money this year. The U.S. Agriculture Department predicts farmers will make half as much as they did in 2013.
The impacts go beyond individual farmer finances. Seed distributor Randall Morris says fewer crops means fewer seeds.
“We got a...seed short. Because they just didn’t have the quality of beans.”
Morris sells seeds and fertilizer out of a large warehouse in another part of town. He reaches into a large white tarp bag and points to soybean seeds that don’t look very good.
“That’s the beans the guys are going to be planting this year. You seeing the purple holes.”
Morris is concerned those beans won’t be worth as much. Even healthy crops aren’t expected to increase in value very much over the next decade. Here’s USDA economist Warren Preston.
“It looks like we are in this era of lower prices for several years and it could take some sort of a major weather event to turn that around.”
He says global demand for some U.S. grown crops has weakened -- while at the same time farmers here intend to plant more. But that isn’t translating into more business for equipment dealers.
Shiny red tractors, combines and pickers line the lot of John Stuckey’s dealership. And he doesn’t like what he sees...all this equipment on his lot.
“It is pretty full. If the farming industry was real good right now it wouldn’t be that full.”
Stuckey points out a giant red combine tractor the size of an Army tank in front of his store.
“And then that big piece of machinery right there. That’s that the combine they repossessed. They brought back in.”
Repossessed...because the farmer couldn’t afford it. Stuckey says he now gets a few calls every week from people asking for more time to get the money together for monthly payments.
“There were days in this dealership we did not even see a customer, the phone did not hardly ring. I mean they just, it was almost like they were hibernated and didn’t come out.”
Stuckey has been in this business a long time and has seen its ups and downs. But this time, he’s concerned about the recovery.
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