BATON ROUGE (AP) — A new study says the mid-August flooding's wreckage of south Louisiana crops and farmland caused an estimated $277 million in damage.
The estimate released Tuesday by LSU AgCenter economist Kurt Guidry is more than twice his original damage assessment of what farmers lost in crops, livestock, equipment and increased production costs.
And it comes on top of $90 million in agricultural damage across north Louisiana during flooding in March.
The largest August flooding damage hit Louisiana's soybean and rice crops, estimated at losses of $69 million each. Corn damage was pegged at $44 million, while cotton damage reached $26 million.
Agriculture Commissioner Mike Strain is traveling to Washington on Wednesday, along with the governor, seeking aid for farmers in the package of disaster recovery requests pending with Congress.
