Hay: A Hidden Loss For Central Louisiana Cattle Producers From Record Rainfall
By Karl Wiggers
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation
PALMETTO, La. — The rain fell hardest in Avoyelles Parish, but the damage did not stop where the storm did.
As floodwater moved south into northern St. Landry Parish, farmers and ranchers watched a slow-moving disaster creep across fields, roads and yards already soaked from weeks of wet weather. For cattle producers, one of the most damaging losses may be a crop that often gets overlooked: hay.
“Simmesport is 22 miles from my house,” said Austin Pitcher, a St. Landry Parish cattleman and custom hay baler. “From my house to Maddie's Truck Stop is like 22 miles, and they got anywhere from 28 to 31 inches in 12 hours.”
Pitcher said the floodwater did not arrive all at once. Instead, it moved a mile or two at a time, giving farmers a few days to move equipment and prepare, but little certainty about where the water would go next.
“If that water moved two miles a day, it was five to eight days later and it was in our yards,” Pitcher said. “That’s kind of the way it went.”
The water took so much time because of Louisiana’s geography, according to State Climatologist Jay Grymes, who said they’re still working out the final numbers on rainfall in the area.
“The simplest answer for why it takes so long to drain is because we're so flat,” Grymes said. “There's just no slope to take the water out. And the other instance here, as especially those monster rains in central Louisiana, you got a lot of obstacles, both natural and manmade, that further limit the ability for the water to move out. The other thing that happened was all of that water that fell in Avoyelles, the only place you could go was in St. Landry.”
That slow rise may have spared some homes and barns, but it left hay fields sitting in water. For hay that was ready to cut, standing water can quickly take away most of the crop’s value.
“Hay that was ready to cut, if it stayed there long enough, it probably just rots off, turns black,” Pitcher said. “We’re seeing some of it turn up green, but it’s far from good. Hay that was already baled, it’s going to be rotting.”
For farmers, the hidden cost is that even hay with little or no value still has to be handled. If damaged hay is left in the field, Pitcher said it will still be there when the next cutting comes through.
“You go through the same steps whether the hay is good or bad,” Pitcher said. “You could have $100 hay out there and it’s worth $100, or you could have hay you’ve got $10 in and can’t sell because it ain’t worth nothing. You still have to go through the steps just to get to the next step.”
That means cutting, raking, baling and hauling a crop that may not be fit to sell or feed.
“You’ve got $15 to $18 in a bale of hay that’s literally trash,” Pitcher said. “You’ll still pick it up five or six weeks from now when you try to do it again, so you’ve got to roll it up and get it out of the way.”
Even further away from the storm’s center, the rain, combined with drought that stretched from 2025 to late spring this year, halted hay production. Robert Duncan, a cattle and soybean farmer near Boyce, said he has yet to cut any hay this year.
“We haven’t even hooked the hay cutter up yet,” Duncan said. There's nothing really growing in it because of the water. It's a 60-acre hayfield and that whole field has had water on it for most of May and June. So, it's going to be a trying year. Luckily, we have some leftover from last year, so we should be okay.”
Pitcher said he’s in the same boat--many producers in his area were waiting on enough dry weather to finish their first cutting when floodwaters arrived.
“We hustled and we did get some hay cut and baled, but we’re not nearly where we should be,” Pitcher said. “It ain’t quit raining since we started. There are still a lot of folks in that same situation that were waiting to get this first cutting out of the way.”
In a normal year, Pitcher said producers try to clean up fields early in the spring and then manage the next few cuttings for better quality. This year, he said, many fields have been too wet to manage properly.
“On a year like this year, we’ve been three months watching the first cut grow, and you can’t put any money into it because the weeds are growing in it,” Pitcher said.
The timing matters for cattle producers because much of the hay in that part of the state goes directly to feeding cows. If hay is short, expensive or poor quality, producers may have to look farther away for feed or add supplements to carry cattle through.
“A lot of the hay in this part of the country is going to cows,” Pitcher said. “It’s plenty of hay out there. It just needs to be put in a bale now, but it ain’t going to be much quality. It’ll probably keep cows alive, but that’s about it.”
Louisiana Agriculture and Forestry Commissioner Dr. Mike Strain met with farmers in the area to hear damage reports firsthand. He said crop insurance and existing disaster programs may help some producers, but they will not cover every loss.
“Some of them have lost entire crops,” Strain said. “There are going to be some big gaps that we need to fix. Plus, our farmers have been on razor-thin margins for years. They don’t have any excess capital in the banks to overcome this.”
Strain said state and federal officials are working to gather preliminary damage information. Once the water recedes, he said the Farm Service Agency will be part of the process to document the size, nature and scope of the losses.
“The process is now that we tell the farmers: keep good records, do what you need to do,” Strain said. “Contact your crop insurance agency, contact Farm Service Agency.”
He urged farmers to take photos, write down expenses and keep detailed records of any work tied to recovery, including fence repairs, fuel, feed, hay movement and cleanup.
“Get a notebook,” Strain said. “Write everything down. Keep track of that. All of that is very important when you make the claim to any of these different programs.”
For Pitcher and other hay producers, the next few weeks will depend on weather. They need enough dry days to salvage what they can, get damaged hay out of the way and give the next cutting a chance.
“We’re still waiting,” Pitcher said. “You’ve just got to take advantage of the little time we get.”