Farmland flooding in the US

Dallas Matte sand bags the Luguette's family camp on Herman Dupuy Road in Butte LaRose, La.

Thu, May 12, 2011 - 9:18 AM

(CNN) -- Across the South and lower Midwest, floodwaters have covered about three million acres of farmland, eroding for many farmers what could have been a profitable year for corn, wheat, rice and cotton, officials said today.

In Arkansas, the Farm Bureau estimated that damage to the state's agriculture could top more than $500 million as more than a million acres of cropland are under water.

"It's in about ten feet of water," Dyersburg, Tennessee, farmer Jimmy Moody said of his 440 acres of winter wheat, which was to be harvested in the coming month.

Other farmers in Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee and Arkansas rushed to salvage what wheat they could ahead of the rising water. As for corn, farmers who were able to get into the fields during a soggy planting season in late March and April are seeing their crops in some cases under several feet of water.

Farms near and on the Mississippi River are no strangers to flooding, but the 2011 flood is definitely one for the record books.

"This is new water that has reached areas for the first time in 75 years," said Lee Maddox of the Tennessee Farm Bureau.

Of course, the flooding is covering more than farmland. In Louisiana alone, Gov. Bobby Jindal said, as many as three million acres -- of farms, forests and towns -- could be affected. In Mississippi, 600,000 acres of farmland are only part of 1.4 million acres likely to be flooded, said Andy Prosser of the state's Department of Agriculture and Commerce.