Delays in Aid Leave Western North Carolina Farmers in Crisis

Terry Kelley has been with North Carolina’s Henderson County Cooperative Extension for eight years. As the director and tree fruit and beekeeping agent, he interacts with farmers frequently. Lately, the conversations have all carried the same theme: frustration.

That’s because Henderson County farmers are still facing negative repercussions from 2024’s Hurricane Helene — eight months later. Kelley said the Henderson County Farm Service Agency (FSA) staff have been overwhelmed and understaffed. “They’re getting tons and tons of requests for disaster relief,” he said.

According to the Office of State Budget and Management, Helene caused an estimated $59.6 billion in damages in North Carolina. The economic damage to the state’s agricultural sector is an estimated $4.9 billion, according to the North Carolina Department of Commerce.

“We got absolutely wiped out by that storm, the worst storm to hit western North Carolina in history. Our farmers are all hurting right now in western North Carolina, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that it’s taking a long time to process [requests] through our FSA offices because they’re just overwhelmed with paperwork right now,” Kelley said.

Jason Davis, owner and operator of North River Farms in Mills River, raises hay, corn, and a variety of produce. Davis said he and other farmers are waiting on a specific type of disaster recovery payment from FSA’s Emergency Conservation Program (ECP).

According to the USDA, ECP “offers financial and technical assistance to agricultural producers to repair and restore farmland affected by natural disasters such as floods, hurricanes, wildfires, drought, and other calamities. ECP helps farmers and ranchers implement emergency conservation measures to rehabilitate damaged land, restore agricultural production, and prevent further environmental degradation.”

Davis needs the money because of the cost of cleanup on his farm after damage sustained from Helene. 

“Our farm was decimated. We had flood damage that washed away fields and washed away roads and washed big holes and gullies in our fields. We had to fix all of that [and] remove all that debris,” he said.

Davis described “acres and acres and acres of debris that had to be removed,” and fields that required repairs before planting could start in the spring.

“We have all of that debt over our head and all those bills to pay, and we’re waiting on ECP to come through,” he said. 

The only assistance he has received so far is from crop insurance and the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program (ECAP), he said. His understanding is that the ECP money is “in the process,” and that FSA is waiting on funds to be released.

“We have been in touch with our congressman and our senator’s office, and they say they’re doing everything they can to get assistance to agriculture as quickly as possible — that the [ECP] money’s available, but it’s just got to go through the FSA process, the USDA process. That’s what we’re being told,” Davis said.

Kelley described the urgency for some farmers in waiting: “They’ve got their creditors knocking on their door. …They can’t really afford not to plant the crop this year because then they don’t have revenue coming in, so they’re in a real bind right now.

“I certainly don’t blame it on their local FSA office,” Kelley said. “They’re doing the best they can do with the resources they have. They just need more resources, and they need this money to start flowing into these programs. We are now eight months away from the hurricane, and [there’s] still no money getting into the pockets of our farmers.”

Kelley said there was a state program that provided $200 million for farmers. “That’s not going to cover the bill at all,” he said. “It’s not going to come close.”

Kelley also brought up the natural disaster aid many producers are still waiting on as part of funding from the American Relief Act. “By and large, that money has not moved out of Washington yet. …We feel like a reasonable chunk of it’s going to come to western North Carolina for our farmers.”

Since Successful Farming’s interview with Kelley, the USDA announced the release of $1 billion in Emergency Livestock Relief Program money as part of the American Relief Act funding. The rest of the more than $20 billion in funding has not yet been released, according to the agency’s public page.

“We’re counting on these programs to get our farmers back on their feet, and it’s just slow. It’s like molasses right now. It’s just not moving,” Kelley said.

Kelley said most farmers in his community are frustrated. 

“We’ve heard of farmers having to sell equipment just to make payments. Some of them have even considered selling their farms, and this is a prime development area,” Kelley said.

“We would like to keep as many of our people farming as possible because we want to see agriculture thrive in western North Carolina, but you’ve got the pressure of people moving in here constantly, and land prices being high,” Kelley said. He added that farmers are getting to the point of having to make a hard decision: wait for the government to help or be done with it.

“It’s horrible,” Kelley said.

Davis said the feelings of frustration are the “general consensus among all the farming community.” According to Davis, the issue is discussed in “every farm meeting we have,” from county Farm Bureau meetings to Extension meetings.

“It’s got a lot of farmers upset and really worried about their reimbursal and their cost share money that they’re all expecting, and now it’s farming time. We’re all putting crops in the ground, and we’re having to go and borrow money. We’ve all spent money on good faith, and now we don’t know if and when we’re going to see this ECP money,” Davis said. 

“There’s a lot of farmers that are really struggling, including our family farm. We’re all really struggling,” Davis said.

Like Kelley, Davis made it clear that his frustration is not directed toward his county FSA office. “I’m not attacking our local staff,” he said. “I know they’re working hard, but they are very overwhelmed and understaffed, and I know that they’re not in a good spot right now, so I do not want to put any negative reflection on them personally,” he said.

A Voice for the Farm: Linda Pryor Advocates Amid Delayed Relief

Linda Pryor farms with her husband, Adam, and her father-in-law in Henderson and Transylvania counties. They’re based out of the Edneyville area.

Pryor grows primarily apples and corn, but also raises some hay and beef cattle. She said it’s important for farmers to diversify. “We really found that out with the Hurricane Helene damage. It was great to be spread out. We had much more damage in the northern part of Henderson County than we did in other areas, so we were thankful not to have everything right together.” 

Pryor is heavily involved in agricultural advocacy. She serves on North Carolina’s Cooperative Extension board, is on the North Carolina Apple Growers Association board of directors, and is active with Farm Bureau.

Since sustaining damage from Hurricane Helene, Pryor estimated her farm has seen $1 million in total losses, as of now. Some of that was the physical crop and was covered by crop insurance. The rest was damage insurance didn’t cover — road washouts and debris disposal costs, for example. The trash they cleared might surprise you. “I have found every appliance you can imagine. We’ve had multiple hot tubs in cornfields,” Pryor said. 

Pryor’s farm has received Marketing Assistance for Specialty Crops Program aid for the orchard and ECAP aid for corn. The farm hasn’t received any ECP money yet.

Pryor echoed what Davis said about ECP funds: There are a lot of Henderson County farmers still waiting for payments. Those who have received money applied earlier; how quickly a farmer could get an application turned in depended on circumstances out of their control, at times.

“When you turned in your application, you had to be able to assess all of your damage,” Pryor said. That wasn’t possible immediately after Helene. For example, her farm had a field they couldn’t get into until early this year due to highway damage.

“It was very difficult to even assess damage to complete those applications, because there were places that we physically couldn’t get to see how it was,” she said. 

Actually getting necessary work completed has factored into how quickly applicants get paid.

Although contractors — a necessity for large debris and other work — are in short supply because of demand, Pryor’s farm has been able to retain someone. Still, the work isn’t completely done, so they haven’t gotten any ECP money yet even though they’ve applied.  “We’re still cleaning up, so we don’t have the ability to turn in and say, ‘OK, we’re completely done. Here’s all of our documentation. Here are our receipts,’ because we’re not done yet.” 

Pryor said it would be helpful if programs like ECP could be paid out in installments rather than one lump sum at the end. As an example, it would have been ideal to receive payments in three installments: after cleaning up debris, after purchasing new trees, and after setting new trees.

Pryor recently met with Congressman Don Davis, D-NC1, to show him the damage in person. During the visit, she said it was “very helpful” to convey that some of the impact from Helene was delayed, such as dormant trees appearing fine in the fall, but then ultimately succumbing to damage once they bloomed.

“There are things and damage that occurred that weren’t visible right when it happened, and I think as the fruit continues to mature, we’re going to see more of that,” Pryor said. That could apply to field crops, too, Pryor said. “There was who knows what in the soil. Are things going to grow the same way that they did? We don’t know, and that’s impossible to predict right now.”

Pryor expressed frustration with the back and forth that occurs between federal and state government.  Administrators have told her, “We need to see what federal is going to do to see what the state can do,” and, “Well, we need to see what the state’s going to do to see what federal [can do],” Pryor said.

“Somebody’s got to pull the trigger and make a decision,” she said.

Pryor expresses the importance of patience and tries to keep in mind that there was no guidebook for the damage in western North Carolina. “The federal government has never dealt with anything of this magnitude before in an area like this. It’s just unprecedented.” 

She also acknowledged that many other businesses besides agriculture were affected. 

Yet, farming is “not something that you can just close the door [on] and say, ‘Okay, well, we’ll wait and then open back up when we’re ready and able to,’” she said. “We have to figure out how to keep going.”

The Henderson County FSA office had been listed for lease termination by the Department of Government Efficiency, but the lease was renewed recently. Pryor said the potential lease termination hadn’t necessarily slowed anything down from a farmer’s perspective, but it did hurt morale. “Our office is a tri-county office, so it’s already serving three counties,” she said. “I just thought, this is incredibly poor timing.”