The Christmas season is a time for hope, and it seems fitting that this hopeful season marks how we begin to close out 2020. We look ahead to a new start and new opportunities in a new year.
See more: Looking Ahead to the New Year
Hope hasn’t been easy for many of us to find this year, but for a farmer, it is one of the necessary tools of the job. It takes hope to prepare the land, it takes hope to spend money on seed and equipment and it takes hope to sign a loan. A farmer invests every season with no guarantee of a return, and it’s hope and, for many farmers, faith that sustain us as we move forward with a crop or raise our animals.
I find peace and hope in counting my blessings and finding the good even through hard times. Farming didn’t quit when the world stopped, and there was enough food to go around despite disruptions brought by COVID-19. When we saw our neighbors struggling to bring food home, we found ways to provide our farms’ bounty to them, and programs like the USDA Farmers to Families Food Box program played a role in making that happen. We pulled together and helped each other in so many ways. County Farm Bureaus and Farm Bureau programs turned the resources they would have put into events this year into efforts to make masks and provide sanitizer and personal protective equipment to essential workers.
See more: Why You Should Buy a Real North Carolina Christmas Tree
I believe brighter days are ahead for North Carolina farmers, and one of those emerging bright spots has been the increase in opportunities for food businesses to launch and thrive here.
While North Carolina offers the third-most diverse agriculture sector in the country, we have lagged other states in having the operations in place to turn those crops into value-added products. We are catching up thanks to initiatives like the NC Food Innovation Lab in Kannapolis, which offers the development and business services to make North Carolina more attractive to food companies.
I’m calling on the same spirit of hope that moves our state’s farmers to put a crop in the ground each spring to carry us into 2021, and I hope you find that spirit, too.
From all of us at North Carolina Farm Bureau, we wish you a Merry Christmas, and a Safe, Happy and Healthy New Year.
– President Shawn Harding
