Each week we’ll round up the latest N.C. agriculture headlines from newspapers across the state and country, as well as excerpts from the stories. Click on the links to go straight to each paper’s full story.
- “Saving farmland,” Winston-Salem Journal: Farming is a bedrock of North Carolina. But the state is losing farmland at an alarming rate. This hurts the state in several ways, and more leaders should join the effort to reverse the loss. More farmers should be kept in business. …
- “With farming goes loss of a way of life,” Jacksonville Daily News: America’s farm families have kept this country humming through recessions, depressions and wars. They’ve built their businesses on a combination of hard work and luck. The hard work often requires hands on from everyone in the family, starting with grandparents and ending with young children. …
- “Our View: Dwindling acreage isn’t just the farmer’s problem,” Fayetteville Observer: Steve Troxler, state agriculture commissioner, has to care: It’s his job. But how about the rest of us? Do we care that North Carolina lost more than 600,000 acres of farmland in five years? …
- “Learn how to market your food business,” Asheville Citizen-Times: Food companies can learn about opportunities for expanding their businesses at a workshop Thursday, March 19, in Greensboro. The workshop, titled “Food Marketing in the Real World,” will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. at Southern Foods, 3500 Old Battleground Ave. …
- “Editorial: Farmland, paved,” Raleigh News & Observer: Oops, there went Sampson County. That, it turns out, is a handy way of picturing all the farmland that North Carolina has lost in recent years. “Lost”? We know where it is, it’s just not being used any more to grow food and fiber. …
- “NC Dept. of Agriculture grant secures long-term easement,” Asheville Citizen-Times: Funding from the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services’ Agricultural Development and Farmland Preservation Trust Fund has helped secure long-term conservation easements on five tracts, one of which is in Buncombe County, of farm and open land threatened by development. …