Farmers Flood Fields To Help Hunters
By: Import User
Updated: January 7, 2009
Some Arkansas farmers are flooding their fields
with millions of gallons of water.
They are transforming the rice and soybean plots to hunting
spots designed to draw ducks -- and hunters willing to pay for the
right to stalk the birds. Duck season opens this weekend.
Dow Brantley farms near England. He says the income from hunters
helps sustain some farms in the current economy.
The Brantley farm is just 18 miles from Stuttgart, the
self-proclaimed "Rice and Duck Capital of the World" where the
industry brings in one (m) million dollars a day during hunting
season.
Farmers start the floods about a week before opening day. Diesel
engines drive pumps that haul water out of bayous, over levees and
into the fields. The engines run 24 hours a day, pumping water at a
rate of 700 gallons per minute.
Posted by Mike Hellgren
