A portion of the statewide Farm and Food Profile
Agriculture matters in North Carolina. What does that look like? North Carolina’s agricultural industry, including food, fiber, and forestry, contributes $111.1 billion to the state’s economy, accounting for more than 16 percent of the state’s income, and employs 16 percent of the workforce.¹ Not all farms look the same though. North Carolina is one of the most diversified agricultural states in the nation. The state’s 42,817 farmers grow over 80 different commodities, utilizing 8.1 million of the state’s 31 million acres to provide consumers with a dependable and affordable supply of food and fiber. Farmers use the income generated from their products to cover costs associated with land, equipment, labor, and other costs of running a business. The state ranks eighth nationally in Total Market Value of Agricultural Products Sold2 and the net income per farm in the state is over $86,645.3
Click the image to find your local farms and food profile.
What does that mean on the county level? Consider one example: When school systems purchase food from local farmers, students benefit from access to healthy fresh produce, farmers benefit from sales into local schools, and the community benefits because these local sales are spent at other local businesses. This type of local business opportunity keeps farms in production, maintaining North Carolina’s agricultural asset base both in terms of land and farming know-how. And it keeps dollars spent on food circulating among other local businesses.
To provide a snapshot of the importance of agriculture on the county level, the N.C. Cooperative Extension Local Food Program, NC FarmLink, and the Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS) created a profile for each county and each Council of Government region based on a comparison of 2022 and 2017 USDA Agriculture Census data. The data is organized in panels to make it easy to pull screenshots for presentations and conversations.
These Local Farms and Food Profiles help economic developers, planners, local food advocates, and community members understand the impact of their county and region to the overall NC agricultural economic impact. The economic indicators provided here can help local governments as they design ways to support agricultural businesses as key components of vibrant and resilient, local and rural economies. Each region in North Carolina presents a unique set of opportunities for sustainable economic growth and entrepreneurship. To help start the conversation, we created discussion points for the local farms and food profiles to help generate ideas for how to use this data in communities across the state.
Join a webinar on October 3, 2025 to learn more and ask questions.
¹Agriculture and Agribusiness: North Carolina’s Number One Industry
2USDA North Carolina State Profile
3 USDA State Summary Highlights
This post was written by: Hannah Dankbar, Laura Lauffer, and Noah Ranells
Find more information on the CEFS website here.