‘It’s just suffering’: Drought conditions causing issues with farmers across South Carolina

MARION COUNTY, SC (WMBF) - Farmers across the state are hoping for relief from the growing drought.

“It takes a lot of rain to get out of a drought that we’re in right now,” Aynor farmer Heath Squires said.

Squires owns Southern Palmetto Farms with his wife along with two other farming companies with his dad and uncles. He knows how to tend to crops and knows the importance of having enough rain.

“One or two-tenths is a Band-Aid, but we need 2 or 3 inches, an inch at a time, two inches at a time,” he said.

It’s the Squires’ corn crop that was paying the price Monday.

“I mean, you can just look across and look at the damage and how it’s just suffering from dry weather,” Squires said.

He said the corn should be larger and brighter than it is.

“If this corn was healthy and getting plenty of rain, it’d probably be about 6 or 7 feet tall. It would be fully green, there wouldn’t be any dry spots on it,” he explained.

It’s not just farmers and their crops that need the rain. It’s also rivers like the Little Pee Dee. While you can see some residual water, much of it is bone dry.

And it’s taking extra effort from Squires just to keep their family’s businesses afloat.

“Some of them we’re starting when we get off work of an evening, around 5, 6 o’clock. Some of them we’re getting up at 11, 12 o’clock of a night and going to the field and cutting them on for the next morning. We try to irrigate when the sun isn’t out when we won’t get as much evaporation, try to use the most out of the water,” Squires explained.

He said he keeps many crops on irrigation, just like his turf, to try and keep everything healthy.

“It’s pretty green and lush but it’s one of the fields that gets watered just about every night. And we’re trying to get it grown into where we can harvest it as soon as possible,” he said.

At the end of the day, he said the extra cost is worth it.

“I love what I do, I wouldn’t want to do anything else than what I do right now -- farm,” he said.

Much of the state was under a drought Monday, though WMBF News meteorologists are forecasting showers later in the week.

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