Hail Damages Tobacco

Source from:  By Jordan Cooke, Staff Reporter 08/03/2007

But hurricane taught farmer value of insurance A summer storm that sent hail raining down on tobacco plants dredged up painful memories and left a gaping hole in the pockets of Jimmy and Will McKenzie. On Monday, father and son said they lost as much as 30 percent of their crop to hail damage suffered in Friday's sudden storm. The McKenzies, who planted tobacco on 150 acres along U.S. 70 west of Smithfield, said the financial loss could reach six figures. "It wasn't a particularly big area that was damaged," Will McKenzie said on Monday. "But where the hail did hit, it hit hard." Fortunately, Will McKenzie said, he and his father have insurance that will help shield them from such a hefty blow. McKenzie said his father learned the hard way the importance of being insured when Hurricane Fran ravaged the state in 1996. He said his dad lost a similar share of his crop that year, when Fran's rains drowned many of the tobacco plants. "That was the last year he farmed without insurance," McKenzie said. "The payments might be rough on a farmer, but I'll tell you, it does help you sleep better at night, in years where you have a lot of damage, to know that the insurance company will do their job and take care of you." Bryant Spivey, director of the Johnston County Cooperative Extension Service, said the McKenzies' plight was an unfortunate sidebar in a year that has seen more damage from drought than rain. "We're estimating that the return on corn this year will be about 50 percent less than what it could have been, because corn doesn't respond as well to dry weather," he said. "If you look at tobacco, on the other hand, from strictly a yield percentage, it's not as susceptible as corn is. Tobacco has the ability to wait for rain." "But if conditions continue to be dry, the quality of the tobacco product this year could be off because we need rain to hasten the ripening process," Spivey said. "If it doesn't ripen, that means the crop will be green. And that's undesirable." Enditem