••• SPONSORED SECTION •••
LOOKING AHEAD AND BEHIND
N.C. A&T University’s 2023 Small Farmers of the Year have plenty to tend. They’re working to protect their family farm while helping others find roots in the state’s
largest industry.
Jeannette Martin Horn and Joyce Martin Bowden work the same Wayne County soil that was cultivated by their great-great-grandfather Harry Martin, who escaped slavery and served with the Union Army’s 135th U.S. Colored Troop in 1865. “After he got out of the Army, it took him almost 20 years to receive his pension,” Horn says. “But when he got it, he started buying land in the same area where he was enslaved.”
The sisters work alongside their four siblings on the farm, which has been in their family for five generations. They sell the vegetables they raise at J&J Martin Farm Produce, their small farm stand in Mount Olive, and the farmers market in Goldsboro. “This is a century farm, coming up on 150 years old,” Horn says. “We were born and raised right here.”
They both are working to ensure that legacy, and anyone else who wants to contribute to the state’s rich agricultural heritage, continues well into the future.
Martin bequeathed parcels to his nine children, who in turn passed their land to their children. Across the generations, the farm has operated continuously. “Our great-great-granddaddy actually wrote a will, recorded it in the Wayne County Courthouse,” Horn says. “And you don’t find many people that far back that did those things.”
North Carolina Agriculture and Technical State University Assistant Professor Biswanath Dari agrees. He leads a team of colleagues administering the Heirs Property Program, a collaborative project with NC State University that helps landowners protect and preserve their generational land. It has identified 88,339 properties totaling 537,224 acres in North Carolina. It aims to identify landowners and educate them about the legal, financial and familial complications that heirs property can entail and how to mitigate them.
Heirs property is passed down through generations without the use of a will or probate. Dari points to generations of landowners who divide their ancestral lands among family members and pay taxes on it. Over the years, ownership becomes complicated. “For example, after 25 years of owning property, there may be 20 owners, and they may not live in one place and may be scattered,” he says. “If anyone ever wanted to sell all or part of it, they would need a will and signed legal documentation of agreement from all the owners.”
The land is vulnerable if no clear ownership exists. Anyone can claim it. “Although you cared for the property for decades, you may not have any right to hold it if you do not have all the legal documentation or own the title,” Dari says. “So, we are educating people on the value of registering their deeds and writing wills that will protect family land for future generations.”
Horn, Bowden and their siblings are intent on safeguarding their farm. “We’re conscious of the fact that we need to set it up so that the next generation of our family will be secure, and we are at work now, setting up our wills,” Horn says.
The sisters own 200 acres. Their siblings own other parts of the family farmland, all connected and stretching across a broad swath of fields and forests. They grow sweet corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelon, cantaloupe and mushrooms. They enjoy experimenting with fruit trees, pineapples, and other fruits and vegetables not usually associated with North Carolina. “We’re not out here working or doing this hard work just for the money,” Horn says. “We actually enjoy it.”
Both retired from professional careers, Horn from the North Carolina justice system and Bowden from the social work sector in Philadelphia. Bowden returned to the family farm in 2018, two years after her husband died. She had no way of knowing that she was embarking on a second career. “I had this idea that when we retired, we would set up a roadside stand and have a little side hustle, so we wouldn’t get bored,” she says. “I wasn’t thinking about it becoming an actual full-time business.” It has become much more.
N.C. A&T State University Cooperative Extension named Horn and Bowden its 2023 Small Farmers of the Year, an award that celebrates leadership, innovation, entrepreneurship and environmental stewardship. Wayne County Cooperative Extension Agent Jessica Strickland has been working with the sisters for five years and says their greatest contribution is giving back to their community. “They share their passion for their family’s heritage through internship programs, tours and educational programming,” she says. “They’ve not just focused on their farming operation, rather they’re focused on how they can share it with others.”
The sisters’ significance can be found in connecting people with farming. “Generations of people are disconnected from the source of their food,” Strickland says. “And for them to see local women working on a farm, and how much work goes into it, has value.”
The sisters’ Small Farmers of the Year designation has raised their profile in Wayne County and beyond. Their repeat customers return more often, and they’ve gained new customers. They recently formed a nonprofit educational organization — The Seed House. “[It] will help people who are interested in being a farmer but don’t now how to get started,” says Bowden, who serves as its executive director. ■
— Teri Saylor is a freelance writer from Raleigh.
HOME COOKING
Focused efforts to promote products grown, raised, caught or made in North Carolina turn 40 this year. They help agribusinesses by creating connections with consumers.
At the Flavors of Carolina food show in Greensboro in January, the crowd gathered at the Wingzza booth was deep. They were waiting to sample the Charlotte company’s Mambo Sauce. “[It’s] not barbecue sauce, it’s not ketchup and it’s not hot sauce,” Wingzza owner Larry Swayne says. “It’s sweet and tangy with a little kick to it, and it goes on anything fried.”
Swayne launched Wingzza, serving wings in all the traditional flavors and pizza from a food truck after leaving Maryland for a marketing job in Charlotte almost two decades ago. He learned to love the Queen City’s food scene, but he couldn’t find Mambo Sauce, a staple in the Washington, D.C., metro that draws crowds. So, he filled that gap. Today, his Mambo Sauce is served at several Charlotte restaurants and in more than 500 Food Lion supermarkets across the Carolinas, Virginia and Georgia.
Swayne was one of more than a dozen condiment makers at Flavors of Carolina, where about 170 vendors showcased their Tar Heel products. It’s closed to the public, instead catering to buyers and representatives of restaurants, grocery and specialty stores, and other food-related businesses. Organizers estimated 800 attended the one-day event, sampling products, discussing pricing and discovering unique items – pickles to popcorn, sauces to seafood, catfish to candy and much more.
Flavors of Carolina is a marquee event of N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services’ signature marketing campaign, Got To Be NC, which promotes products that are grown, raised, caught or made in North Carolina. Those include produce, value-added food items, fiber products and nursery plants. The program began as Goodness Grows in North Carolina in 1985 and was rebranded about 20 years ago. “Our mission is to promote and expand markets for North Carolina’s agricultural products both domestically and internationally,” Got To Be NC Program Administrator April Keeton says.
Agriculture is North Carolina’s largest industry. It employed almost 778,000 people and contributed a record $111 billion to the state’s economy in 2024. That’s about $8 billion more than the previous year. North Carolina is the country’s No. 1 producer of sweetpotatoes, tobacco, poultry and eggs; No. 2 in Christmas trees, turkeys and trout; No. 3 in hogs and cucumbers; No. 4 in peanuts and broilers; and No. 5 in cotton. Many of these products were represented at the Flavors of Carolina show, along with beer, wine and distilled spirits, which are seeing rapid growth in the state.
Keeton says a rapidly expanding population of consumers is among the largest contributors to the overall size of the marketplace. “A lot of people are moving to North Carolina from out of state, and they’re searching for products that are grown and manufactured locally,” she says. “The Got To Be NC logo lets them know at a glance that these products are authentic to North Carolina and produced with quality standards.” Besides flying at events, the distinctive green logo is used at roadside stands and markets to flag down passing motorists and on store shelves to stop shoppers.
In addition to the Flavors of Carolina food show, the Agriculture Department organizes its annual Got To Be NC Festival, a three-day event at the N.C. State Fairgrounds in Raleigh in May. Family friendly and open to the general public, it also showcases North Carolina products. About 75,000 people usually attend. “For 40 years, our marketing campaign has been our way of connecting people with our products,” N.C. Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler said at last year’s festival. “By joining us, our business owners can go from mom-and-pop outfits to a full business.” That strategy has worked for Swayne, and it’s working for Edgecombe County business owners Rusty and Mary Ann Holderness.
Rusty’s is a gift shop that has been a downtown Tarboro pillar for more than 40 years. It signals the start of the holiday season when it begins offering its locally famous peanut brittle. The century-old family recipe uses Bertie County peanuts. It sells out every year.
That level of success wasn’t the Holdernesses’ original intent. They were making their peanut brittle for friends and family when their daughter and son-in-law began using it to top ice cream desserts at their Tarboro restaurant. “Their customers loved the peanut brittle so much they started asking for it,” Rusty Holderness says. “So, we thought we’d give it a shot and started selling it in our gift shop.”
After joining Got To Be NC, the Holdernesses’ business took off. Last May, they set up a booth at the Got To Be NC festival, and Rusty’s Peanut Brittle sold out every day. Keeton says they’re part of the growing Got To Be NC program’s membership, which numbers more than 2,600. She says joining is free to producers who meet the criteria.
At the entrance to the Flavors of Carolina show, Troxler welcomed vendors and customers. He says this was the first time the event, previously held in Concord, was in Greensboro. The move resulted in the show growing by 50 or 60 vendors. “It was a good decision, allowing us to expand and offer almost everything you can imagine in the food world,” he says. “You could get a gourmet meal in here.” ■
— Teri Saylor is a freelance writer from Raleigh.
LANDLOCKED
North Carolina is losing farmland at one of the country’s fastest rates. Its farm preservation program trades grants for conservation easements that protect farmland forever.
Kim Palmer grew up on Haywood County land that his family has farmed for six generations. His Scottish ancestors purchased the acreage from a family who had received it through Revolutionary War grants in 1804. Through generations, family members bought neighboring acreage and divided it into parcels. As they passed away, retired or decided to sell, his father bought their portions, meticulously reassembling the original acreage. He paid for it with money he made from farming crops and raising dairy cows.
Palmer learned to love that land. “Growing up on a dairy farm, I was born milking cows,” he says. He and his wife, Tracey, have owned their Buckskin Branch Farm in Clyde since marrying in 1982. They followed in his dad’s footsteps, raising dairy cows, beef cattle, tobacco, tomatoes, bell peppers, corn, hay and dahlias.
As Palmer approached his 66th birthday, he began considering retirement. “I’m getting to the age I can’t farm like I used to, and we don’t have children,” he says. “So, I got to thinking what was I going to do with my land after I’m gone. There weren’t any other opportunities out there other than to sell it to somebody or give it to somebody in a will. And I didn’t want to do that without guaranteeing they wouldn’t just turn around and sell it to a developer.”
Last year, Palmer joined the N.C. Farm Preservation Program, a division of the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. It helped him place his 489 acres in an easement. In the process, he received $492,000, maintained its ownership and protected it for generations to come. His land remains a working farm, and he is leasing it to a fellow farmer. He held out 20 acres for himself and his wife to live on.
The Farmland Preservation Program administers the state’s Agricultural Development and Farmland Preservation Trust Fund. It provides grants to landowners for long-term preservation of farmland, says Evan Davis, farmland preservation division director. In return, landowners agree to place their property in a permanent easement that will protect it from future commercial, residential and industrial development. “That’s the financial incentive for the landowner and the best of both worlds,” he says.
According to a 2020 American Farmland Trust report, North Carolina lost more than 732,000 acres of farmland to development between 2001 and 2016. The state is projected to lose about 1.2 million acres of farmland by 2040, making it second in the United States to Texas in terms of projected farmland loss.
N.C. Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler lobbied the General Assembly to create the farm preservation program in March 2005. Lawmakers passed House Bill 607 during the 2005-2006 session, establishing the program and funding its grants. A Trust Fund Advisory Committee provides guidance on prioritizing and allocating the funding. “The first conservation easements through the trust fund were recorded in 2007,” Davis says. “And since that time, we’ve recorded over 250 agricultural easements totaling almost 38,000 acres across North Carolina.”
Davis says soil and water districts or land trusts work with the landowners, building the conservation easement package, recording deeds and distributing grants. They become the easement holding entity. He says landowners are invited to apply for grants during an annual application window, October through December.
The Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy administered the Palmers’ easement. “We were founded in 1974, and our flagship conservation area was in the Roan Highlands along what is now the Appalachian Trail,” says Jess Laggis, its farmland protection director. “In our region, we have a lot of history of people losing their land, and they tend to be suspicious and are less comfortable inviting a third-party interest into their land management. We are compensating landowners for putting their land into a conservancy, but at the same time, they still own it, live on it, maintain it and continue farming on it, and that raises their comfort level.”
Laggis says landowners use their compensation in different ways, including funding their retirement, paying bills or their mortgage, or transferring land to the next generation. If they choose to sell their land or bequeath it to heirs, the easement accompanies the sale. Easements are recorded at the local courthouse and are forever attached to that land, so families carefully consider their decision to convert it to an easement and discuss it with other family members.
The Palmers’ situation isn’t unique. Many North Carolina farms have been in the same family for more than a century. Davis says many generations have cared for the land. “For farmers that might not have had a plan in place, this program gives them some peace of mind about the future,” he says. “And it’s a way that we can help preserve our shared agricultural heritage and preserve these beautiful rural areas that are so important to the people of North Carolina.”
That’s the way Palmer sees it, too. Many thoughts consumed him as he was planning his retirement. “We found out about the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy, and whenever it came time for me to decide what to do about the future of my farm, I had
to study long and hard, but I thought about my Daddy, and it came to me pretty easy,”
he says.
Palmer points out that his family’s land butts up against the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and U.S. Forest Service land. “It’s pretty woodsy around here,” he says. “And we’re trying to keep it that way.” His entire family is negotiating easements for their own land, and together they aim to preserve the entire region.
“This preservation program gave us the opportunity to see that this land would remain pure, the way it is now with its mountainsides, farmland, wildlife and clear streams,” he says. “If you look at a map, you’ll see the love that’s been put into this place.” ■
— Teri Saylor is a freelance writer from Raleigh.