Texas Freeze Will Cost Ag Producers Millions in Lost Production

Farmers and ranchers in the south continue to assess the damage following the record-setting and deadly Arctic blast. Texas state agricultural officials say the cost of this storm will be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. 

"Just our citrus industry, their loss of just the fruit, not including damage to trees, is over $300 million and it will put a lot of our citrus growers out of business," said Sid Miller, commissioner of agriculture in Texas. "Dairymen are going to go bankrupt and some of our poultry farmers, but this all could have been avoided."

The straight-talking Miller lamented over not just the arctic air's disastrous impact on fruits, vegetables and livestock, but also the state's own hand in worsening the crisis by not prioritizing agricultural processors. 

"I told the governor, 'Hey, people are going to have to eat, the shelves are going to go bare and we need to keep these plants running,'" said Miller. "It fell on deaf ears, unfortunately."

He said his request to add agricultural processors to the critical infrastructure list still hasn't been answered by Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas. The state's dairy industry has been particularly impacted as processors have gone without the power or natural gas needed to keep running.