 Coltrane Dairy Farm in Randolph County (Patrick Jones) |
North Carolina’s farmers, particularly those producing tobacco and hogs, face trying times in the near future. The long-term prospects for tobacco are dimming rapidly as a once flourishing industry is now turning to ashes. Lawsuits, health concerns about tobacco usage, and government interference in both production of tobacco and tobacco products certainly will have a long-term negative impact upon the industry. Tobacco most likely will continue to be grown in the state for years to come, but its significance to the state’s economy is going to become much less important over the next few years and, as discussed below, it appears that tobacco farmers are going to face some very rough times during the next decade.
Of much consequence to tobacco growers is the inability to find a crop that will provide the high return per acre that is realized from tobacco. Aquaculture, tourist farms, truck farms, u-pick farms, and the production of such exotica as paw paws and figs do not generate the equivalent income per acre as tobacco does. And although nursery and greenhouse products have shown strength during the past few years, the market for those commodities is not large enough to make up for losses in tobacco.
The hog industry likewise faces serious challenges. The present moratorium on new factory farms will expire in 2007, and if improvements are not developed in odor and waste control, the industry will be forced to endure another few years of governmental restrictions on growth. However, if science and regulators can find ways to mediate the problems of odor, and most importantly, the danger to surface and ground water from lagoon spills, the industry should resume the growth that it experienced during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Demand for hog products is increasing, both domestically and overseas. Because North Carolina hog farmers are very efficient, they will be able to fill some of the growing demand. This resumption of growth, though, depends on breakthroughs in science and technology that will make hog farming less threatening to the environment.
Overall, however, North Carolina farmers will continue to prosper. The state ranks at or near the top in income generated for a number of crops and commodities that are not associated with tobacco and hogs. Poultry, which also is bedeviled by some environmental concerns, greenhouse and nursery products, soybeans, and corn are some of the more important products produced on North Carolina farms. However, the successful retention of agriculture as a major component of the state’s economy may not depend upon finding new crops but, as was stated in The North Carolina Atlas, “. . .the greatest gains for North Carolina agriculture, . . . are expected to be made by improving marketing efficiency and productivity.”
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