Farming in the southern Appalachians of western North Carolina has never been easy. The southern Appalachian landscape determined farming practices as much as the choices of the farmers. A land of fertile and loamy river valleys and craggy inhospitable highlands, the people who settled and farmed here were no less shaped by the land than they shaped the land to meet their agricultural needs. Farming in the southern Appalachians balanced the limits of the land, the availability and demands of the market, the traditional farming practices of the people, and the day-to-day necessities of survival. The thread that unites these forces has been the resiliency and adaptability of the southern Appalachian farmer.
The first farmers in this region were the Native Americans who began growing food here two thousand years ago. They began a farming practice suited to the area that was later emulated and adapted by the European immigrants that followed. Their agricultural practices consisted of burning patches of forest then planting for several years until the fertility of the soil diminished. They then moved to another area and began again. This type of agriculture supplemented the hunting and gathering practiced for many thousands of years prior to farming and was an adaptation to the conditions of abundant land, simple tools, and a shortage of labor.
The first European immigrants brought their traditional farming methods from their respective homelands. The largest group of immigrant settlers to the area, the Scotch-Irish, began arriving in large numbers into the valleys and coves of the southern Appalachians after the Revolutionary War. They brought a tradition of simple farming tools, independence, and adaptability to conditions. Consequently, they adjusted well to the isolation and dependence on subsistence farming required during the very earliest years of European settlement. Other immigrants included German, English, and French pioneers.
Farmers of the region have weathered ups and downs of the market, loss of forest grazing with the denudation of the southern Appalachian forests to logging followed by fires and erosion, the loss of close markets when railroads and livestock raising in the west destroyed local industry, and the loss of the valuable American Chestnut tree to the Asian chestnut blight. They have ridden the waves of tobacco and apples and suffered the crash when those markets went into decline.
It is often said that change is the only thing that stays the same. Today, change comes at break neck speeds. Farming methods take slow, careful attention to develop and do not lend themselves to fast-paced change. Small scale farming, in particular, is having trouble adapting. Consequently, America is farming on the edge.
Pressures from worldwide markets, sprawl, development, and tourism, as well as uncertainties of tobacco and apple production, might be the last straw for local farmers. Nationally, about one million acres of farmland per year are converted to non-agricultural uses. North Carolina is experiencing a tremendous rate of such conversions. In western North Carolina alone 1,400,000 acres of farmland disappeared to development between 1949 and 1974. Between 1949 and 1992, Western North Carolina lost 71% of its farmland. More than 30 percent of our state¹s prime farmland was lost to urban development in the 1980s and 1990s. With the current average age of farmers in our area approaching retirement age, farmland loss will continue at an alarming rate.
Farming is a traditional way of life that has seen this region through two hundred years of change. Farmland is necessary for the preservation of the mixed landscape of woodland and field that makes the Southern Appalachians such a special place, as well as providing an important habitat for wildlife. If current trends continue, our area will forever lose farming, the scenic beauty it fosters and our ability to grow food locally. With that loss, we will forfeit some of our independence, forcing us to become ever more dependent on other areas and peoples.
Farming used to be seamlessly integrated with the local community. Yet today, much of the food that is locally produced is exported. Conversely, most food consumed locally is imported from some other location. In our region, food travels more than we do, moving an average of 1,500 miles from the field to our table. Most states purchased 85 to 90 percent of their food from someplace else. Our grocery dollar is more about supporting the transporters and distributors of food than the farmers who grow it. The best first step toward reconnecting with our agricultural heritage is to eat locally grown food.
Many people want to buy locally grown food knowing it is fresher, healthier, and supports the local economy and local farms, but don¹t know where to go. Now they have a way to find it. The Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project (ASAP) has published the Buy Appalachian Local Food Guide, a guide to fresh locally grown foods from the mountains of western North Carolina. This free guide can be picked up at area businesses that support local agriculture and on the web at www.BuyAppalachian.org.
Farms, restaurants, grocers, caterers, bed and breakfasts, u-pick farms and any other sellers of locally grown food in the western NC region that want to be printed in the next edition and on-line Local Food Guide should go to www.BuyAppalachian.org and fill out the necessary forms or call 828-293-3262. Submit anytime for the on-line guide. Deadline for submission for the fall printed guide is August 15, 2002.

Charlie Jackson is the Projects Coordinator for the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project. Contact him at charlie@asapconnections.org or 828-293-3262.

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