Farming is tough and it could get tougher
by MCL staff writer

County agent Tim Moore tells of farm problems.

The Colquitt Lions Club met Wednesday, July 11, at noon with President Ben Clenney presiding. After the regular business session, the program was turned over to Walter Daniels who introduced the featured speaker, Tim Moore.

Moore has been Miller County Extension Agent since 1990 and told the crowd that he has seen many changes in agriculture in those few years.

"Miller County is world renown for irrigation. We have more irrigation systems per acre than most anywhere around," Moore stated.

He told the crowd that Miller County is blessed with good soil and a plentiful water supply, even in a time of drought.

Where are we now?

He told that just a few years ago Miller County and this region depended on peanuts to make a living. There was very little cotton grown, and corn was grown for a second crop. Then the farm programs started to change, and peanuts were not as profitable as cotton. The farmer is dependent on the price of the market, and that changes according to the number of acres planted and the yield.

Technology has come forward, and approximately 40 percent of the tractors are operated from satellites. What the farmer wants is programmed into he satellites, which then do the driving. Moore told that it is frightening to think that our tractors are run with some of the same technology that a fighter plane has.

The price of equipment, seed, insecticides and fertilizer have gone through the roof. He told that cotton seed had gone from $30.00 a bag to over $500.00 per bag. The increase in price is due to the seed that has insect and weed control built in.

He stated that since he started here, the number of farmers dropped from 260 in the 1990s to 130 farmers today.

Moore said that irrigation wells have almost been tapped out in this county with over 700 permitted water sources. He noted that we are within six inches of the lowest water ever recorded. He showed a graph of how the water table has been affected by this drought.

There are 75,000 acres of crop land in Miller County and less farmers than ever before. He told the crowd that a farmer could not lose a crop and expect to come back in these times. It was getting harder to be in the farming business than ever before.

Questions were asked about the amount of corn that has been planted.

Moore stated that even with corn bringing $4.00 per bushel, the farmer cannot make money with the cost of growing, gathering and possibly storing. Some farmers have had to irrigate corn over 20 times this season, and with the high price of fuel, that is prohibitive.

No one knows what the new farm program will be, but the support prices have been dropping each year for quite awhile.

Moore was thanked for coming and was invited to come back and join the Colquitt Lions.