Too Much Rain Hurts Arkansas Farming

"Well another storm or two and it will be laying on the ground flat," says Glynn Guenther.

Guenther's family farms almost 5,000 acres in Jefferson County.

Right now he's in a race to get his rice to market. It's already a month late thanks to the weather. Now last week's rains are complicating the effort to get the harvest in.

Guenther says, "In these conditions we'd rather not. But we've got to get the rice out, got to get it harvested because time is your enemy this late in the year. So we just do what we have to get it out."

Not only are the wet fields an inconvenience while farmers are trying to get their rice in, but the fields will eventually dry with deep ruts all over the place from the heavy equipment. And before next spring's planting, Guenther and a lot of other farmers will have to spend thousands of dollars to recondition the fields before they're ready for planting.

Guenther notes, "It's going to increase fuel costs, labor costs, equipment costs, you know, simply because of the excess rain."

But those are worries for the future. Right now the harvest is their only concern.

Even Glynn's 79-year-old father is driving a combine. And after the rice, there are soybeans to work. Those fields are soaked with water, too.

Guenther says, "You just try to adapt and move forward and do the best you can to get your crop out. And hopefully look forward to a better year to come next year."

Senator Blanche Lincoln is chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry.

She says farmers in all 75 Arkansas counties may eventually be eligible for disaster assistance, 54 already are.