Maurice, La. - The aftermath of last summer’s drought has resulted in a challenging season for most farmers in Vermilion Parish. While crawfish and sugarcane may be the first thing that comes to mind, the lack of rainfall is now having a snowball effect on hay farmers.
Third generation Farmer Bradley Duhon has experienced a season quite like no other. “Before the drought we started making six bales (of hay) to an acre at the beginning and when we got the drought, we were down to two bales to an acre,” he said.
The problem lies with the process in making the hay. Duhon grows Bermuda grass to make hay and after each cut, he fertilizes the grass, but with the drought, the grass was too short to cut.
He tells KATC that he is buying hay from Northern Louisiana to make into square bales as a result of the short grass in Vermilion Parish.
Duhon says his limited supply ultimately affected his business. This resulted in Duhon trying different methods to sustain his business like unrolling round bales to make into square bales in order to stretch out this hay for customers.
“It hurts because I had to start telling people no. I was going to run out of hay for my own cows, so I sold as far as I could to sell hay and then I had to stop where customers did not get hay. Everybody was kind of scrambling and trying to find hay,” he said.
Researchers found that the impact to livestock and hay production resulted in a loss of 389 million dollars. Low supply and increased prices made hay very expensive for ranchers to buy. This widespread loss not only impacts farmers, it affects your pocketbook.
“The trickle effect doesn’t stop in the farm. They now have a shortage of cattle. A lot of people sold their cattle because they didn’t have grass, then you’re going down on the number of cattle and then the price of the cattle goes up. When the price of the cattle goes up, it goes up in the store,” Duhon said.
While this was a disappointing season, Duhon is looking forward to getting over this hump.
“I hope we have a better season this year for everybody’s sake because it has hurt a lot of people in the parish,” he told KATC.
