Fall is a busy time for farmers and a very busy time for Farm Bureau. Our farmers are working hard to harvest crops. Our Farm Bureau team is getting prepared and excited for our upcoming annual convention, where we will celebrate 90 years of North Carolina Farm Bureau! I am sure that the 33 farmers that met in Pitt County in 1936 would be astounded that our organization now has over 650,000 family memberships and a presence in all 100 counties. I hope that they would be proud of the number of farm families we have advocated for, and how our brand has expanded to help all North Carolinians by protecting their property and lives.
Our state has changed dramatically in the last decade, let alone in the past 90 years. Regardless of the changing times, our core mission to be the voice of farmers and rural communities has not changed. I attribute the longevity of our organization to our leadership’s unwavering adherence to that mission. Agriculture in North Carolina looks much different than it did in the 1930s. North Carolina Farm Bureau was once predominantly led by tobacco and dairy farmers. Now we are the third most agriculturally diverse state in the country, and we represent all kinds of farmers. We are blessed to have outstanding land grant institutions and other ag partners who have pioneered plant and animal research to the point that we now grow a wide variety of food and fiber products. This edition features our emerging crop series, focused in this installment on one of North Carolina’s two rice farms, Tidewater Grain Co., which grows Carolina Gold rice. I was thrilled to meet one of the farmers from that operation at a restaurant that was highlighting their product.
Much has changed in the last 90 years, and we have so much to look forward to in the future, but it is also important to acknowledge the past. A longtime mentor of mine used to say, “We drink from wells we did not dig.” With the weather cooling down, this fall would be the perfect time to get out and visit some of North Carolina’s farm and rural heritage attractions, or visit a local restaurant that is highlighting NC-grown products. Seeing how far we have come in our ag industry, and as a society, makes me proud and humbled at the hard work that had to take place for us to get where we are today. May we all strive to have the same courage and strength as those who came before us and paved the way for us to enjoy the agricultural bounty we have now.
