AIKEN, SC (WRDW/WAGT) – State leaders are calling agriculture the lifeblood of South Carolina – and it’s been a tough year for farmers in the Palmetto State.

Between Helene, Debby and the summer drought, state officials estimate that South Carolina farmers have lost more than $600 million this year alone.

Officials say it will take a combination of federal, state and local resources — plus help from nonprofits — for South Carolinians to recover from Hurricane Helene.

They aim to bring them together for those in the agriculture sector — for a series of events that kicked off in Aiken on Friday.

“If you’re looking for help and you don’t know where to turn, then you don’t know where to turn. But often you have to go to this side of town and then over to another town and then way over to someone elsewhere, if you know where to go at all,” said Gov. Henry McMaster.

It’s a tough situation McMaster says officials don’t want South Carolina farmers to find themselves in.

Agriculture leaders say no farmer was saved from loss this year in the Palmetto State.

That’s why state leaders launched “Farm and Forest Recovery Resource Days” — the first of which McMaster attended Friday in Aiken.

“It’s answering their questions, and a human person who knows the answers gives them the answers,” he said.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency was among the roughly two dozen units on the scene Friday.

The federal agency says there is still time for South Carolinians who suffered damage from Helene — both farmers and non-farmers — to apply for assistance.

“This assistance may be able to be used for basic home repairs, a temporary place to live,” said Nikki Gaskins Campbell, FEMA media relations specialist. “If you’re a farmer and your equipment got damaged, you might be able to get help that way, possibly for fuel as well.”

FEMA says it has approved more than $221 million in post-Helene assistance to more than 216,000 South Carolina households.

“FEMA’s assistance was never designed to return someone to their pre-disaster state or make them whole,” Gaskins Campbell said. “But we can help them get back on their feet.”

McMaster is optimistic that more help will soon be on the way.

Last week, he wrote a letter to South Carolina’s congressional delegation seeking additional help specifically for the vital agricultural industry.

“Requesting, I think, $631 million, in a grant to do the same thing for the farmers and the forest that FEMA did on the home and business side of the equation,” he said.

Two more of the resource days will be held in the coming weeks – in Greenville and Myrtle Beach.

Copyright 2024 WRDW/WAGT. All rights reserved.