Crops Rebound Better Than Expected at Birds Point

When the Army Corps of Engineers was forced to breach the Birds Point levee in southeast Missouri at the height of spring flooding, many feared the rich 130,000 acres of farmland would be a total washout for 2011.

But the Columbia Missourian reports that six months later, farmers are midway through harvesting the land that has recovered faster than expected.

The corps decided to use explosives to blow open the levee on May 2 to relieve pressure on the river and reduce the threat of flooding at nearby Cairo, Ill. The levee is part of a floodway designed to be opened in times of severe flooding. It was the first time the corps opted to open the floodway since 1937.

Several homes, roads and property were destroyed, but experts say the land has rebounded quickly. When floodwaters subsided in late May, farmers went to work planting soybeans a short time later. Some corn and milo were also planted, on up to 95 percent of land that was submerged, according to an estimate by Sam Atwell, a University of Missouri Extension agronomist in New Madrid County, where the levee sits.

“The land itself came out better than we thought,” Atwell said. “You can’t imagine really swift water 30 feet deep going miles across fields and not hurting the land more than it did.”

Not that the flooding didn’t cause crop damage. The surging waters washed away about 20,000 acres of winter wheat ready for harvest and soaked fields that were ready for corn planting. About half the farmers in the spillway did not have crop insurance because of the high cost, Atwell said.

In early June, at the request of U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, a Republican whose district includes the area behind the levee, the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute at MU estimated crop losses caused by the flooding. The institute assumed that no crops would be planted on any of the 130,000 acres in the floodway.

That estimate put farm losses at $42.6 million — $60.6 million before crop and disaster insurance payouts.

But it turned out that losses won’t approach those levels, Atwell said.

East Prairie Mayor Kevin Mainord, who farms about 2,800 acres in the center of the floodway and another 4,500 outside of it, got all but 100 acres of his land in the floodway planted this year.

“I think a lot of farmers feel blessed to have a crop this year,” he said.

At Robert Henry’s farm, which starts at the base of the levee, the river tore about 150 tons of topsoil per acre. The tops of tree stumps are poking out of the ground in some places for the first time since he can remember.

Still, Henry got all but 15 of his 1,000 acres replanted in July, and he said the rest will be back in production next season. Not that there wasn’t a cost. Henry, 62, said it cost him about $80,000 more than usual to clear his land, level it and plant it in time.