SUWANNEE COUNTY—On Wainwright Farms, rain pours through the gaping roofs of empty chicken houses.

Four months after Hurricane Idalia made landfall in Suwannee County, Wesley Wainwright is still dealing with the aftermath. Ten of his 18 chicken houses were destroyed. With room for around 525,000 chickens, the loss cut his total housing capacity by more than half. After the storm cleared, swooping over the Florida-Georgia line and back out to sea, Wainwright needed help.

“Just like any other farmer, I called up FEMA,” he said. “As soon as you start telling them what your situation is, they say ‘Sir, I’m sorry we can’t help you.’”

FEMA provides disaster assistance for homeowners and renters, but not for farmers and producers. Instead, they directed him to the Small Business Administration (SBA). But they couldn't help him either. 

“SBA can help farmers with their primary residence, it can help with any other building on their land that’s used for personal use, but SBA cannot help them replace livestock or anything they grow.” said Tauheedah Mateen, SBA public affairs specialist for the Office of Disaster Recovery and Resilience. Wainwright was well versed in this bureaucratic back and forth, having dealt with a similar situation in 2018 with Hurricane Michael. 

“On the federal level, the only assistance that farmers can get is through the USDA,” he said. But that help might not come until months later when Congress can meet and reapportion funds.

“Farming is just like any other business,” said Wainwright. “Every day that you’re not in operation, you’re losing money.”Insurance payouts, government cost shares and loans should fill the gap. But for many farmers, they don’t. 

In the weeks after the storm, the USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) made disaster aid and cost share programs available to farmers. But that support, too, was limited. Erin Jones, the agricultural agent at Suwannee County’s UF/IFAS extension office, said FSA’s programs didn’t help with structural damage like toppled poultry houses and blown away barns. FSA’s Livestock Indemnity Program did provide farmers with the opportunity to recoup animal losses due to Idalia, including poultry. 

But if the farmer is contracted with a producer, their eligibility for the program is limited. 

“To the best of my knowledge all poultry houses [in Suwannee] are contracted with Pilgrim’s,” Jones said. Pilgrim’s is the largest chicken producer in the world with a processing plant in Live Oak. “They are the only poultry folks in the area.”

Whether or not a farmer is eligible is determined on a case by case basis, said Deborah Tannenbaum, State Executive Director of the FSA. A lot of farmers are faced with a challenge, Jones said, “do we build back and go into debt or do we throw our hands in the air and say we’re done?”It took Wainwright almost three months to get six of his chicken houses operational again. It will take at least two more to get the rest up and running. 

“My estimate for loss of income and damages is probably going to run me about half a million dollars,” he said. “I’m one of the fortunate ones.” Wainwright was able to get financial help through the state’s Bridge Gap Loan, which is intended to help between the time disaster hits and the time insurance payouts or federal aid is distributed. The program set aside $5 million for agricultural small businesses. 

Recent legislation also aims to fill some of these gaps. A bill passed in November during the state legislature’s special session meeting, set aside $75 million for agriculture and aquaculture. The application period will open in the next two months. 

Jones hopes the funds will help farmers build back barns and other structures that are crucial to their livelihood.FSA also provides loans to farmers after natural disasters, but eligibility requirements, like crop insurance, can leave farmers like Wainwright in the lurch. Crop insurance does not insure chicken houses, which are susceptible to extreme winds.

Davina Lee, regional director of the USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA) for Florida, which offers insurance options, said that likewise, the agency does not have a product that insures poultry or poultry houses. Ever since the National Oceanic Atmospheric Association raised Florida’s hurricane risk, insurance companies have been pulling out of the state. This move is part of a larger trend affecting homeowners too. In July, Farmers Insurance became the latest company to reel back its coverage in the state, blaming the increasing costs associated with natural disasters.

Unlike Wainwright, Theron Dasher, another Suwannee poultry farmer, will not be building back. In the morning Idalia hit, Dasher and his employees sat huddled in his office on the farm. Outside the office walls, his chicken houses toppled over one another like falling dominos. Three of his four houses came down, crushing most of the chickens inside and sending the rest running loose around the farm. Even with insurance that he was able to secure in the 1990s, Dasher doesn’t see the point in reinvesting in his poultry operation. 

“We decided not to rebuild, it’s just time to slow down,” he said. Dasher will still be running his hay farm and dairy operation. 

“Really hard to continue on”

In Suwannee, farming is everywhere. Equipment stores sit on convenient corners, roadside stands hawk pecans and fresh fruit. Agriculture accounts for almost half of all the jobs in the county, while in urban parts of the state it’s a distant reality. 

“The average consumer is three generations removed from a farm,” Jones said. “People aren’t really understanding where their food comes from and how much it takes to get it on the table.”Family-owned farms make up the vast majority — 97% — of farms in Suwannee County. Wainwright’s farm is no different. He and his family have run it for nearly 50 years. 

“A lot of these farms are multi-generational,” Jones said. “When we hit a struggle or a wall like this, it’s really hard to continue on to leave something for your kids.” 

In the future, hurricanes that form are more likely to become intense, like Idalia and Hurricane Michael in 2018, according to computer climate models. The change is related to warming ocean temperatures, according to NASA.

A recent study from Princeton researchers also projects that while now, storms are unlikely to hit the same place with damaging force soon after one another, that will change over the coming century. If warming continues, the chances of tropical cyclones impacting the same location will “substantially increase,” the researchers reported.Even now, some farmers in the region are still recovering financially from Hurricane Michael five years after the storm.

Jones, the Suwannee County agricultural agent, worries that if there aren't adequate programs to support farmers through natural disasters, there will be no incentive to build back. 

“That kind of scares me,” she said. “What does the future look like here in Suwannee County for agriculture after something like this?”