One of the good things about being allowed to provide a weekly column for the agricultural section of The Robesonian, is that the agricultural section is always printed on Thursday. That means that every year during this very special week, the agricultural section is always printed on Thanksgiving Day. How appropriate; my column gets published on Thanksgiving Day.

Almost everyone reading this column has probably just finished a delicious Thanksgiving meal. You probably consumed enough calories in one meal to sustain a family of four, and while doing so, you probably gave very little thought to how all that food wound up on your dinner plate. You may have helped prepare it in the kitchen and serve it to your family, but who had to do what to make all that food available to you?

Many of us take food for granted. We go to the grocery store and fill up our grocery carts -- grumbling because it cost so much without stopping to think that much of what we place in our carts is not food items. We enjoy the most abundant supply of foods in the world, unfortunately, resulting in the fact that too many of our people are now obese. We enjoy the most diverse foods in the world. Would you have ever thought you could have enjoyed fresh watermelon and strawberries in November? We enjoy the safest food supply in the world; even when, on rare occasions, foods become tainted. Many more of our people become sick or die because of poor food handling practices at home.

It takes a tremendous amount of work and almost 40 percent of our workforce to keep our agricultural economy going in North Carolina. Agriculture is the largest segment of our economy, valued at almost $41 billion.

There are almost 48,000 farms in North Carolina, a decline of over 4,000 since 2002. At the same time, the amount of land devoted to the production of agricultural crops has declined from 9.1 million acres to 8.8 million acres. More and more of our prime agricultural lands are being used up to build housing communities, roads, and shopping centers. If this trend continues, how much longer can we provide the abundant supply of food that we have come to enjoy?

The average age of our farmers is getting older each year; an indication that too few young people are entering the profession of production agriculture. Fewer than 5 percent of our farmers are less than 35 years old, but more than 17 percent of them are over 70 years old. The average age of farmers in North Carolina is 56.1 years old.

Many people think that the trend today is toward corporate farms, and that most of the farming in North Carolina is done by these large corporate farm operations. This is far from the truth. Individuals, the small family farms, operate almost 91 percent of the farms in North Carolina. Partnerships, often made up of immediate family members, make up about 6 percent of the farms. Corporations make up only about 3 percent of the farms.

Another misconception in today's world of production agriculture is that the small family farm has disappeared. In truth, almost 1/2 of the farms in the state are less than 50 acres in size. A farm is defined as any establishment from which more than $1,000 worth of agricultural products are sold each year. Twenty-one percent more are between 50 and 100 acres. Only about 3 percent of the farms in North Carolina are more than 1,000 acres.

It is true that the larger farms do provide the vast majority of agricultural products. Only about 7 percent of the farms in the state are over 500 acres in size, but these farms produce over 50 percent of all the agricultural products produced in the state.

Robeson County ranks 8 in the state in total farm receipts, producing over $262 million in 2005. Our local farmers made a significant contribution to your Thanksgiving dinner. If you see one of them during the next few weeks, take a few minutes to thank them for what they do. If you think about it, without our farmers, we would be hungry, homeless, and naked.

Enjoy this special season with your family. Be safe, and give thanks for the many blessings of life.

E-mail address: Everett_Davis@ncsu.edu

Mailing Address:
P. O. Box 2280
Lumberton, NC 28359-2280

Phone: 910-671-3276
Fax: 910-671-6278

Date Created 12/5/07