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Agriculture is crucial to North Carolina’s economy, environment, and culture. From the mountains to the coasts, farming is a fabric of the literal and figurative landscape. Yet in recent years, many of the state’s farms have struggled.
Data from the latest U.S. Census of Agriculture, which was released in 2024, shows that between 2012 and 2022, North Carolina saw a decline of 7,400 farms. That’s a 15 percent decrease — from more than 50,000 farms to less than 43,000 — in only 10 years. Some counties and communities feel this loss more acutely than others, but the trend is truly statewide.
And it is, or should be, concerning.
A variety of factors have led to many farms hurting, from high input prices and volatile markets to the damage from storms like Helene, which especially impacted communities in Western North Carolina. Another challenge is transitioning a farm from one generation to the next. “Generational transfer,” as some estate planning and agricultural experts call it, is a complex process, one filled with economic and emotional hurdles.
How do you navigate the ins and outs of transitioning dozens or hundreds of acres? How do you ensure that you’re being fair to all heirs without necessarily carving up the farm into equal-sized parcels and limiting its productive capacity? What if you don’t have any children, or what if none of your children want to farm?
When much of your savings are tied up in the land itself — when, as some have called it, you’re “land rich and cash poor” — how do you fund your retirement, cover medical expenses, and provide for family without simply selling the land to the highest bidder, which, in North Carolina, usually means selling to a real estate developer?
There are no easy answers. What works for one family might not work for another. But the Duckett family of Buncombe County highlights one way that farmers can successfully transition their land, keep it in agriculture, and gain some financial security all at once. Their story can serve as instruction and inspiration to farm families across North Carolina and beyond.
Worrying about the family farm’s fate
Nestled in the heart of the rural Sandy Mush community is the multi-generational Duckett family farm. Cattle graze its fertile pastures and wildlife love its wooded areas.
“I’ve lived here all my life,” Kevin Duckett said.
For him and his family, the land isn’t just a source of livelihood. It’s their home. Yet years ago, the future of their farm looked uncertain as his father got older and his health grew worse.
“He had always farmed, and he didn’t really have any retirement savings. My aunt, my dad’s sister, was pretty much in the same health situation. It was hard. We had to start looking at selling the land. None of us wanted to do that, but we weren’t sure what else we could do.”
Duckett’s hope was to continue his family’s farming legacy, and to one day pass the farm down to his daughter. But that plan was in jeopardy. Given Sandy Mush’s proximity to Asheville, the family knew that putting the land on the market likely meant converting it out of agriculture. Many of the once-rural places in and around Buncombe County have transformed into sprawling subdivisions and low-density residential development.
A family friend threw the Ducketts a lifeline, telling them about the nonprofit Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy, which works with landowners to help them protect their land from development through conservation easements, or legal agreements that protect property as open space. In some instances, the Ducketts heard, farmers could be paid to protect their land so that it would remain a farm forever.
Centering on the succession planning process
The conservancy confirmed that, if their property met certain qualifications, the Ducketts could be paid for protecting their farm through a conservation easement. Recognizing that maintaining agricultural land provides a series of public benefits — from securing places for food production and safeguarding wildlife habitat to preserving scenic vistas and maintaining water quality — several different federal, state and local programs fund farmland protection.
For example, the Natural Resources Conservation Service manages the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program. North Carolina also has a state-level program, the Farmland Preservation Trust Fund. They each, with county-level efforts, partner with nonprofits like SAHC to pursue conservation projects that support family farmers and protect land.
Between verifying legal boundaries, conducting current conditions reports, and completing legal paperwork, the easement took some time.
“I see the beauty in that slowness, especially because these landowners are making such major decisions about their land. It takes a leap of faith, and that requires time to build trust and create a rock-solid relationship,” said Jess Laggis, SAHC’s Farmland Protection Director.
The Ducketts learned that they could still farm on their land as they have for generations, build barns and other agricultural structures if needed. They could even reserve the right to build another home in the future if they wanted.
Trust built, questions answered, the Ducketts were able to close on the conservation easement, protecting their beloved land and receiving some much-needed funds in the process.
Duckett’s parents, Bill and Mabel, have now passed away. But the farm remains, and the next generation — Kevin’s daughter, Jessica — is poised to take over. She has already started growing grapes on the farm, working to leave her own legacy on the land.
“I would like to see my daughter and my grandkids continue to farm this place, to keep the farm going and enjoy it and be good stewards of the land,” Duckett said.
A model for other farms
The Ducketts and Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy highlight a successful model for generational farm transitions, one that centers land protection. It’s an approach that has caught on — especially in Sandy Mush.
“Kevin is so modest that he probably understated their impact,” said Laggis, “but their decision to protect the family farm was a seed that really snowballed in the community.”
The Ducketts are well-known ane respected in the area. When they decided to protect their land, neighbors were watching.
“They saw them living with those easements and being satisfied with them. Having that firsthand experience, a trusted testimonial, was huge in the area. Other landowners could see that it wasn’t a trick and that it can be a great thing for families,” Laggis said.
Since working with the Ducketts — now on multiple occasions as the family has protected additional acreage — the conservancy has partnered with several other families in the area to conserve open landscapes for agriculture, creating a patchwork of protected farms over the last two decades. Some have used conservation easements to help ease generational transitions.
“I would like to see my daughter and my grandkids continue to farm this place, to keep the farm going and enjoy it and be good stewards of the land.” — Kevin Duckett
SAHC is pursuing this protection-succession approach throughout their 10-county service area, which spans parts of WNC and East Tennessee.
Part of their work is fueled by their participation in a national project, Land Transfer Navigators. Led by American Farmland Trust and funded by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, the project involves more than three dozen conservation organizations that help families navigate farm transitions. These organizations gather regularly to learn about new and time-tested succession strategies, receive funding to support their work, and offer technical and financial assistance to some farmers to achieve their farm transfer goals.
“It’s a powerful project,” said Erica Goodman, director of AFT’s Farms for a New Generation team. “We are so thankful for partners like SAHC. They are committed to building trust with farmers and helping secure their land and legacy for future generations.”
Laggis said she knows farmers who lost hay they had stored in barns that flooded during Helene, a lot of fence damage and downed trees, and major devastation to some operations, including a nearby dairy.
“But many of the farms we work with, especially those using conservation practices in and around their pastures and fields, were OK. Helene has underscored how profoundly important it is to preserve open fields and floodplains,” she said.
“Some farms in the community got washed out quite a bit,” Duckett said. “Thankfully, we’re up toward the headwaters. I did see that our stream fencing really helped us. The flood didn’t wash out anything major on our land. It cut the creek bank down a little bit … But it was nothing major compared to the impacts on others.”
By working with trusted partners like Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy, even more farmers can begin to take steps toward conservation and farm transition, steps that secure their land and support their families.
“I believe that the majority of farmers are excellent stewards,” said Duckett. “They care about their land.”
Brooks Lamb is the Land Protection & Access Specialist at American Farmland Trust. He is also the author of Love for the Land: Lessons from Farmers Who Persist in Place. This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times and was published through the USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect.
