When Bill Miller, an Oktibbeha County farmer, was looking to plant his corn, peas and okra on his roughly three-acre farm in March, he thought he had found the perfect planting window.
But since planting, nearly all his crops have died.
“(My crops) are not doing anything,” said Miller, who does not use an irrigation system because he historically has not needed one. “It’s really spotty. I don’t have a good stand on any of the rows. … And if they don’t get a rain, they’re not going to do very much. … They won’t make it.”
Miller is facing a potential $15,000 loss in revenue because of his dying crops, and he’s not the only one.
Since January, Mississippi has experienced its 10th driest year to date in the last 131 years, with only 10.2 inches of rainfall compared to the state’s average of 16.2 inches, according to the National Integrated Drought Information System website. While the Golden Triangle has received some relief since Friday in the form of 0.8 inches of rainfall, the region and state still need more consistent precipitation to mitigate potentially millions in crop losses, said Mike Brown, state climatologist.
“We’re bumping up against (the) threshold right now where we just have got to get some soil moisture, at least in that top 2 to 4 inches for these seeds to germinate,” Brown said.
As of 2024, the Golden Triangle and Noxubee County have 1,536 farms that tend to more than 240,000 acres of cropland, the United States Department of Agriculture reports.
Those farmers look for a dry planting window between the scattered spring showers the region gets in the early months of each year.
“No one saw this coming,” Brown said. “I couldn’t have predicted that we would just shut off the water in February and March. And I think the farmers were thinking, ‘This is awesome. We can get in there. We can get things planted in fairly dry soil, and then we’ll just wait for the spring rains.’ And unfortunately, the spring rains haven’t come.”
Dale Weaver, a Noxubee County farmer, said he had already planted his 1,200 acres of soybeans and corn by the beginning of April, which was earlier than usual.
Weaver said after a lower harvest last year, he was intent on trying to get a better yield by planting earlier, but now he’s worried that decision could cost him.
“Every year, you never know when you put seed in the ground what kind of a harvest you’re going to get,” Weaver said. “That’s just the way it is. But when it’s starting off this dry, it’s a little more of a concern that if we don’t get some timely rains during the summer, it could lead to a poor harvest.”
Rising costs
While Weaver has an irrigation system, he said because of the extended drought his irrigation reservoirs are lower than normal, and they won’t be enough to support his 1,400 acres through an extended summer drought.
Matt Brignac, farmer and co-owner with 4B Planting, said this year he planted about 700 acres of corn and is still waiting for wetter land to plant cotton on the other 1,400 acres of his property. He also has an irrigation system, but it only covers a fraction of his land and will not save the majority of his already planted corn.
“We are going to be short on some of our irrigation water this year,” Brignac said. ”… You typically don’t fill up irrigation ponds in the summertime, you drain them.”
Farming soybeans costs about $436 an acre without irrigation, according to 2026 Mississippi State University Extension Service planning budgets. Those costs balloon by an additional $117 per acre when including summer irrigation.
Farming an acre of corn costs about $760, with the costs jumping by an additional $136 per acre when using irrigation.
Beyond the drought, rising diesel and fertilizer costs are also making it a difficult year for farmers, said Will Maples, a MSU Extension Service agricultural economist.
Diesel fuel on Monday in Mississippi cost $5.03 a gallon compared to $3.17 a gallon a year ago, AAA’s website said. Widely used fertilizers like urea and anhydrous ammonia jumped between $166 and $214 since February, according to MSU Extension’s website.
Maples said it’s going to be difficult for a lot of smaller and older farms to swallow those costs if there is another lower harvest yield because of the dry weather.
“We’ve had a stretch of bad years in the row crop sector,” Maples said. “… I’m afraid guys who are at the retirement age (will) say they’re just done, and don’t want to keep going in this current low price, high input cost environment.”
Seeds in waiting
Anywhere between 1 and 1.25 inches of rainfall is forecast between today and Wednesday, the National Weather Service website said.
Brown said that type of rainfall would be in the ballpark of what would help get farmland back on track for this planting season.
“I’m somewhat hopeful here that over the course of the next five to eight days that we may be able to pick up between an inch and a half and two inches of rain,” Brown said. “Which would kind of reset things in at least that upper section of the soil moisture.”
Brown said farmers may still have a lifeline even if those rainfall totals end up being less than expected.
Across the state, 45 counties have been designated for Farm Service Agency emergency loan assistance by the USDA to help with issues like operation costs and production losses from the drought.
To be designated as an area of relief a county has to experience eight weeks as an extreme drought zone, Brown said. While the Golden Triangle and Noxubee County have not been designated yet as an area of relief, they could be if conditions persist.
Brignac and Weaver agree that another year with lower yields would be detrimental to their farms, but they remain optimistic that the rainfall this week will be enough to help their crops.
“We rely on Mother Nature, and we rely on input (costs), and we’re all talking about stuff that we can’t control,” Brignac said. “… All we can do is concentrate on the things that we control.”
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You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 37 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
