The Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS), North Carolina State University and partners recently received two grants from Dogwood Health Trust to support our longstanding work in Western North Carolina. These two new grants include:

• A two-year, $500,000 grant to support Western North Carolina (WNC) Sustainable Agriculture Workforce Initiatives, a collaborative effort between CEFS, NC Choices, Warren Wilson College and Organic Growers School. This grant will fund a series of regionally-rooted, farm-based training efforts to prepare a skilled agricultural workforce needed to build a more climate-resilient food system post-Hurricane Helene. Funds will be used to continue the WNCStrong Youth Service Corps, pilot the first registered apprenticeship in pastured livestock production in North Carolina and implement a Western NC cohort of CEFS’s Sustainable Vegetable Production Registered Apprenticeship. We are currently composing our 2026 cohort of schools, teachers, youth and farms for the WNCStrong Youth Service Corps and recruiting host farms and apprentices for the CEFS Sustainable Vegetable Production Registered Apprenticeship. The pastured livestock production apprenticeship is planned to launch in the fall of 2026. Learn more here. Stay up to date on project activities on the CEFS website or by joining the CEFS Career Pathways email list.
• A two-year, $145,200 grant to support a collaboration between CEFS Farm to Senior Services (F2SS), Empowering Mountain Food Systems and N.C. Cooperative Extension. The project, “Piloting Community-based Farm to Senior Services Strategies to Improve Food Security for Older Adults in Rural Western North Carolina,” will build on existing work in McDowell County and support new F2SS local food purchasing pilot efforts in Burke County, Yancey County and the Qualla Boundary of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI). Learn more here. 

CEFS is grateful for the opportunity to partner with Dogwood Health Trust and expand our impact in Western North Carolina.

Farm to ECE Institute participants celebrating NC Crunch! The North Carolina Crunch promotes healthy eating and supports farm to school, farm to early care and education (ECE), and other local food initiatives throughout the state. Join us October 22, 2025 or anytime this month by crunching into a locally grown fruit or vegetable!

Learn more about NC Crunch: growing-minds.org/north-carolina-crunch
Learn more about CEFS Farm to ECE: go.ncsu.edu/f2ece

In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, NC Choices has collaborated with Extension livestock and forage partners to develop NC Hay Finder, a new website to help connect farmers needing hay with those who have hay to sell. Read more below…

NC State Extension, with the generous financial support of NC Farm Bureau and NC Cattlemen’s, has launched a new tool for connecting those needing hay with those who have hay to sell.  The newly launched website, nchayfinder.com, allows you to search for hay by your zip code.  You can then sort by distance, type of hay, or price.  If you have hay for sale, you can create a listing by creating an account.

For livestock production, forage is the primary source of feed and nutrition.  Simply, forages are the plant material that animals eat, whether the animal harvests it themselves through grazing or it is harvested mechanically (hay, sileage, baleage) by the farmer. Feed is the most expensive cost of a livestock enterprise.  Farms that can extend their grazing season through management (rotational grazing, improved pastures, etc.) can help reduce this cost.  Even with the best management practices, there is still a need for feeding stored forages (hay, baleage, silage).

In 2023, 119 million tons of dry hay was produced nationally. Based on the 2022 Census of Agriculture, North Carolina harvested over 1.2 million tons of dry hay.  Many variables affect the quality of hay. These include, but are not limited to: the species of hay (fescue, orchardgrass, alfalfa, etc.), stage of maturity of the plant at harvest, amount of weeds in the forage, and how the hay is stored. There are visual inspections that you can make to help assess the quality of the hay. However, the best way to assess the hay is to have the forage analyzed.

Your forage analysis results are only as good as the sample you submit. Be sure to collect a representative sample of the hay you want analyzed and keep the sample clean from contaminants. Sample each unique lot of hay, or hay from the same field and same cutting. If possible, use a core sampler to obtain your sample from various bales from the lot.  Always sample from the end of square bales or the round side of a round bale.  It is best to remove the outer half inch of the bale before sampling to help limit contamination.  Mix the samples in a clean plastic bucket.  Typically, a gallon-size portion is needed.

You can send your sample to the NC Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services Feed & Forage Laboratory or you can choose a commercial lab for testing.  For more information about the NC Hay Finder website or how to collect a forage sample, contact your local livestock agent.

Download this one-pager about NC Hay Finder.

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.

Soil microbial communities are fundamental to nutrient cycling and overall soil health, yet their long-term responses to varying agricultural inputs and management systems remain a complex area of study. A recent article, published in June 2025 in Pedosphere, delved into these dynamics by examining soil microbial activity, diversity, composition, and predicted functionality across a 24-year experimental period at CEFS Field Research, Education, and Outreach Facility located at Cherry Research Farm in Goldsboro, NC.

Study authors, including CEFS-affiliated faculty member Dr. Arnab Bhowmik, collected soil from two depths (0-10 cm and 10-20 cm) across six distinct long-term plots.

Findings highlight that microbial shifts were not limited to surface soils but extended into the 10–20 cm layer, emphasizing the deeper influence of sustained management practices. Such insights underscore the critical importance of adopting sustainable agricultural management for fostering long-term ecological benefits and highlight the need for continued research into the intricate interactions between agricultural practices, soil microbiology, and ecosystem functions.

Read the article to learn more.