{"id":42719,"date":"2025-01-23T08:56:18","date_gmt":"2025-01-23T08:56:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/agriculture\/the-farm-to-fork-disconnect-first-furrow\/"},"modified":"2025-01-23T08:56:18","modified_gmt":"2025-01-23T08:56:18","slug":"the-farm-to-fork-disconnect-first-furrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=42719","title":{"rendered":"The Farm to Fork Disconnect \u2013 First Furrow"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

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The following commentary is by North Carolina Farm Bureau President Larry Wooten.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Last week I had the opportunity to attend Thrive NC<\/a> in downtown Raleigh. The event had some great food prepared by truly exceptional chefs, live music, a praiseworthy service project, and a summit to discuss food insecurity and childhood nutrition. As the leader of the state\u2019s largest general agriculture non-profit and a farmer myself, I left that summit with a nagging question: where is the disconnect?<\/p>\n

Let me explain.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s farmers are growing the most affordable, abundant, and nutritious food in human history. And they are growing more of it while using less inputs thanks to advances in precision agriculture and biotechnology \u2013 advances that include everything from drones that help farmers target their water and fertilizer applications<\/a>, to GPS-driven tractors that improve safety and efficiency<\/a>, to GMOs that help reduce the need for chemicals while also increasing yields<\/a>. It\u2019s estimated that today one farmer feeds 155 people compared with only 26 people back in 1960.<\/p>\n

Additionally, North Carolina is the third most diverse agricultural state<\/a> in the nation, and our farmers are top producers<\/a> of pork, poultry, sweet potatoes, trout, catfish, eggs, cucumbers, strawberries, blueberries, peanuts, and bell peppers. We also grow corn, wheat, tomatoes, watermelon, cabbage, squash, and apples; we raised 830,000 head of cattle and produced 965 million pounds of milk in 2016 alone.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that not all of this food stays within the state, or even the nation. Farmers feel the responsibility of feeding a growing world population, but the reality remains that they are running small businesses. This sometimes means exploring export markets<\/a>, especially in times when commodity prices are so low<\/a>, as they are now.<\/p>\n

Despite these sometimes difficult circumstances, North Carolina farmers are doing a remarkable job growing the world\u2019s food and fiber.<\/p>\n

Yet last week I learned that North Carolina is the tenth hungriest state in the US, one of every four children face hunger on a regular basis, and approximately 1.5 million North Carolinians struggle to buy affordable and good-quality, fresh food.<\/a> Those statistics are staggering, heartbreaking, and when taken together with what I know about North Carolina agriculture, those statistics are also bewildering.<\/p>\n

Which takes me back the question that has been troubling me since the Thrive NC summit last Thursday \u2013 where is the disconnect between the nation\u2019s ninth most productive agriculture state and the nation\u2019s tenth hungriest population? And more importantly, how do we fix that disconnect?<\/p>\n

I applaud the efforts of Thrive NC and the discussions it generated were certainly through-provoking. But perhaps my chief disappointment with the summit, and hopefully something that can be remedied at future events, was that more farmers were not included in the discussion. I know our farmers care deeply about feeding people and are passionate about what they do. I also know that they have valuable insights and experiences that will only strengthen and lend credibility to the conversation. And considering they are responsible for growing the vast majority of the food that we eat every day, I think they deserve to be part of the solution.<\/p>\n

I realize that the challenge of ending hunger is complex. I understand that the paths that end in failure far outnumber the ones that end in success. I also know that it will take collaboration from countless individuals and groups with varied backgrounds, experience, and knowledge. For our part, North Carolina Farm Bureau is engaged and I hope we can help connect those North Carolinians who don\u2019t have enough to eat with the abundant food and fiber our farmers work so hard to grow.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following commentary is by North Carolina Farm Bureau President Larry Wooten. Last week I had the opportunity to attend Thrive NC in downtown Raleigh. The event had some great food prepared by truly exceptional chefs, live music, a praiseworthy service project, and a summit to discuss food insecurity and childhood nutrition. As the leader […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42720,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12026],"tags":[24875,6021,2983,16403],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-42719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agriculture","tag-disconnect","tag-farm","tag-fork","tag-furrow"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Farm to Fork Disconnect \u2013 First Furrow - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=42719\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Farm to Fork Disconnect \u2013 First Furrow - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The following commentary is by North Carolina Farm Bureau President Larry Wooten. 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