(CNN) - Across the South and lower Midwest, floodwaters have covered about 3 million acres of farmland, eroding for many farmers what could have been a profitable year for corn, wheat, rice and cotton, officials said Thursday.
In Arkansas, the Farm Bureau estimated that damage to the state's agriculture could top more than $500 million as more than 1 million acres of cropland are under water.
"It's in about 10 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.FULL STORY
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