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DES MOINES - Despite two major storms that damaged hundreds of millions of dollars of crops, Iowa's corn and soybeans are still in good shape this year, state Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey said Tuesday.

A storm in late July battered farms in six counties in northeast Iowa, causing $200 million in damage. Another storm on Sunday pelted five northern Iowa counties. Damage from that storm was still being assessed, Northey said.

''For the vast majority of producers out there, crops look so much better than a year ago,'' he said. ''The rain, if you didn't get hail, was a very good thing. There were probably thousands of happy farmers with that storm that came through and dozens of farmers that had some significant losses.''

Hardin County was among the hardest hit Sunday. Eleven people in Eldora suffered minor injuries in the hailstorm that shattered windows and shredded siding.

Gov. Chet Culver was touring Eldora on Tuesday. On Sunday, he issued an emergency disaster proclamation for Hardin County.

Northey looked at the crop damage in the Eldora area on Monday.

''It's a real mess,'' he said.

Northey said 10-foot-high corn west of Eldora had been sheared.

''Now it's not even knee-high,'' he said.

Ray and Betty McDowell were attending church in Eldora when the storm hit. Ray McDowell, who farms east of Eldora, told The Des Moines Register he suspected the worst.

''Most of the cornstalks were broken and the soybean plants were ripped apart, with the pods on the ground,'' McDowell said. ''I can't remember a hailstorm this bad for at least 20 years.''

The storm hit in a band along U.S. Highway 20 in Webster, Calhoun, Hamilton, Hardin and Grundy counties.

Northey said some fields were affected while others were not.

''One of the thing about hail is it bounces sometimes. You'll have an area that's affected for 2 miles wide and 3 miles long, then nothing is affected for the next 2 or 3 miles,'' he said.

Northey said most farmers have federal crop insurance or private hail insurance that covers damage.

''If they didn't have crop insurance, this is a pretty big loss,'' he said.

Eldora-area farmer Gregg Reisinger told the Register that his soybean crop was a total loss, with about 500 acres of corn either damaged or destroyed.

''There's not much I can do except wait for the insurance adjuster,'' said Reisinger, who has farmed for 40 years and said he'd never had damage this bad.

Northey said that while Sunday's storm was devastating, the hailstorm in July was bigger.

''This Eldora storm impacted maybe 5,000 or 10,000 acres. That area up there, there were 450,000 acres hit by hail and 75,000 acres that was totally destroyed,'' he said.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Iowa planted 13.7 million acres of corn and 9.8 million acres of soybeans this year.

''These are small storms, but if it happens to be yours, it's a big deal,'' Northey said.