Copiah County farmers John Butler Smith andJames Hoffman waited in a field for an 18-wheeler truck with aflatbed trailer to arrive at Smith’s farm just north of theCopiah-Lincoln county line Wednesday morning.

    Hoffman sat in the driver’s seat of his tractor, mounted with aforklift attachment. He just got off his cell phone.

    “He’s in Natchez,” he said. “It’ll be about another hour.”

    He was talking about Wayne Smith, from Jefferson, Texas, who was enroute to Smith’s farm to load his trailer with 40 round bales ofhay.

    Wayne Smith, like many suffering under the already yearlong droughtand now wildfires in Texas, is forced to look in other places forhay so that cattle and horses can survive. He said ranchers inTexas either cannot grow any more hay because of lack of rain, ortheir stockpiles have burned up in fires.

    As though the nation’s ongoing recession is not enough, the droughtand resulting wildfires in recent weeks across Texas have forcedmany ranchers into a bind with their businesses.

    According to Tom Pauken’s opinion column published in HoustonCommunity Newspapers earlier this week, a survey taken by the Texasand Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association shows ranchers havesold 40 percent of their cattle this year compared with the annualaverage of 5 percent to 10 percent.

    Pauken, chairman of the Texas Workforce Commission, also said theTexas Farm Bureau reports many ranchers plan to leave the businessentirely after they sell off their herds.

    “People are in a real bind over there,” Butler Smith said. “I had abunch of extra hay, and if I have extra, I’d rather let Texas haveit.”

    Butler Smith and Hoffman together have sent more than 300 roundbales of hay to various places affected in Texas. They said someranchers are seeking hay from as far away as Odessa, Texas, morethan 700 miles away from the Mississippi River.

    Wayne Smith arrived at Butler Smith’s farm after about five and ahalf hours and nearly 300 miles. He said trucks are coming andgoing every day along the Interstate 20 corridor from Texas toMississippi, Louisiana and Alabama and back.

    “It’s like a train on I-20,” he said. “I counted 18 trucks in aboutan hour’s time on the way over here.”

    Wayne Smith said not only are he and others like him in search ofhay, but other feed and fertilizer as well.

    “That’s just how it is over there right now,” he said. “It’s atough situation, and a lot of people are getting out of thebusiness altogether. I’d say about 50 percent just went straight tocow auctions. Didn’t even try. They just got what they could fortheir cows.”

    Wayne Smith had a spare 18-wheeler flatbed in his yard that hedecided to use to try and transport what supplies he could find inother states. He said he knows some truckers with their own truckswho quit their regular jobs to help out with the feed crisis.

    Because of the extreme shortage in the hay supply in a drought,Wayne Smith said he and other Texans are preparing for it to lastanother year.

    Also, many hay-seekers are faced with another problem as they cometo find quality hay product in other states. Pauken said in hiscolumn some out-of-state farmers are jacking up their prices totake advantage of Texas’ deficiency.

    Fortunately for Wayne Smith, that was not the case Wednesday.

    “They (Butler Smith and Hoffman) sell it to me for $40 a roll, sothey’ve been really good to me,” Wayne Smith said. “It’s qualityhay, too, which is the main part. But to get hay period isgreat.”

    People like Butler Smith and Hoffman understand and keep theirmorals above greed.

    “I’m not going to gouge the prices like I’ve heard some people aredoing,” Butler Smith said. “I’d rather be honest and fair withpeople. You can have all the seed and fertilizer in the world, butyou gotta have rain to make it work. And they don’t have that, butwe’ve been fortunate to have it over here.

    “I’d rather give to somebody than take away,” he continued. “I’mjust not like that.”