Each week we round up the latest N.C. agricultural headlines from news outlets across the state and country, as well as excerpts from the stories. Click on the links to go straight to the full story.
- “FDA halts food imports from affected area of Japan,” Charlotte Observer: The Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday it will halt imports of dairy products and produce from the area of Japan where a nuclear reactor is leaking radiation. …
- “Planting roots: Piedmont Food and Agricultural Processing Center to help local farmers,” Durham Herald-Sun: Arthur Lockhart grows mushrooms and vegetables. His friend, Eugene Flowers, is a retired barber who wants to start growing vegetables to make some extra money. The two Richmond County men drove here for the Orange County Agricultural Summit on Monday and to visit the future Piedmont Food and Agricultural Processing Center. …
- “Not bothered by cold winter, strawberries expect to be plentiful this year,” Wilmington Star-News: This past winter was brutal. Many areas saw record lows, and even more areas saw long stretches of unusually cold weather. It kept a lot of people indoors. But strawberries didn’t seem to mind. …
- “Tree farmer, others fight to save research station in Laurel Springs,” Winston-Salem Journal: Joe Freeman, whose Mistletoe Meadows family farm won the coveted honor of supplying the White House Christmas tree in 2007, has asked Ashe County commissioners to try to keep open the Upper Mountain Research Station in Laurel Springs. …
- “Help plant economic roots by shopping local,” Hendersonville Times-News: The slogan “Buy Local” seems to be all over the area. Whether we are purchasing hardware, clothing or food, we are encouraged to buy our goods from a local or locally owned enterprise. The idea of this concept is to keep as much of our earned income in the local economy to create and keep local jobs. This concept goes even deeper than that when we are buying locally grown fruits, vegetables and plants. …
- “Agriculture research center helps increase blueberry yields, profits,” Wilmington Star-News: The perfect blueberry is elusive. But across Castle Hayne Road from the GE plant, there’s a farm with rows of muscadine grapes, some blueberry bushes and several small buildings. Trucks with state license tags come and go down the long dirt driveway. And signs indicate visitors need a purpose to be there. This is not a state-supported Area 51 for alien fruits. It’s an N.C. State University Horticultural Crops Research Station, one of 18 research farms operated in cooperation with the N.C. Department of Agriculture. …