“As you have likely noticed in recent weeks, fresh beef, chicken and pork have all been hard to find on the grocery shelves. As consumers have stocked up in anticipation of COVID-19 stay-at-home orders, the meat shelves in many stores have been nearly empty.”

Read the full article on WRAL.com

Spectrum News covers MeatSuite.com, a website where consumers can find local farms selling pasture-raised meat in bulk. | Spectrum News

Nash Community College’s Small Business Center was among the recipients of the 2019 North Carolina Community College System Small Business Center Network Innovation Award for its Programs and Seminars. The Center was recognized during a ceremony held at the NC Small Business Center Network professional development conference on November 7, 2019.

The annual statewide awards honor small business centers and center directors for Innovation, Service/Collaboration and Programs/Seminars; Business Success Story (Most Impact and Overcoming Challenges) as well as State Director’s Award and Rookie of the Year.

Nash, Edgecombe and Wilson Community College Small Business Centers received the Innovation Award for their collaboration with the N.E.W. Business of Agriculture: Regional Opportunities for Growth Summit held in November 2018 at Wilson Community College.

“The event was the first of its kind for farmers and individuals working in agribusiness in our tri-county region. Attendees learned from industry experts about the future of agriculture in Eastern NC, the growing business of industrial hemp, and diversification opportunities in agritourism,” NCC Small Business Center director Theresa Peaden said.

Special thanks to Laura Lauffer, NC State University Center for Environmental Farming Systems; Ron Townley, Upper Coastal Plain Council of Governments; and Hannah Quigley, Food System Program Fellow, Self-Help Credit Union for their support of the N.E.W. Business of Agriculture Summit.

“Over 200 attendees participated throughout the day at one of several seminars,” Peaden said. “Our own, Chef Frank Bookhardt served sweet potato baklava from the NCC Mobile Culinary Lab along with local small business owner Tommy Southerland providing Cackalacky Coffee. NCC Culinary and Brewing, Distillation and Fermentation programs were among the exhibitors participating. All around, it was a collaborative effort utilizing many local resources to make a difference for farming businesses in Eastern NC.”

This article originally appeared on GrowingProduce.com.  Read the original version here.

By Lisa K. Johnson | Rebecca Dunning

A good maxim for any business is “measure-to-manage” (i.e., if you can measure it, you can manage it). And growers typically embrace it.

Yet there’s one area long overdue for measuring: how many fruits and vegetables remain in the field after the last harvest.

Why measure crops you’ve already decided aren’t worth harvesting?

We can give you one good reason. Our team learned several leftover crops on North Carolina farms were of high enough quality to sell profitably. On the flip side, we also learned some crops wouldn’t justify the cost of sending the harvest crews back in.

But the only way to know if another pass at your field really will be profitable is to know what you have. In other words, to measure.

In addition to potential sales, measurement can inform other strategies:

Spacing plantings a few more days apart so that fields can be harvested again.
Planting less acreage in order to reduce land and chemical use but still harvest the same amount.
Training harvest labor to take more time in the field to ensure that less produce is missed.
Contacting gleaning organizations to take advantage of the remainder.

Growers often diversify to reduce uncertainty. The strategy of measuring to manage produce still in the field may provide one more tool to mitigate risk as the season progresses.

Take a look at the step-by-step instructions we developed (in the box, right) to help you assess if it’s worth adding one more harvest at the end of the season.

How to Know What Is Left After Harvest

1. Finding out what is left in the field is simple and straightforward. It’s similar to measuring harvest potential, but the measurement is taken when the crop is winding down rather than ramping up.
2. Identify rows at random throughout the field and mark desired lengths, such as 25 feet or 50 feet on each row.
3. Harvest everything that remains on the plants.
4. Sort the harvest for quality. Growers use a range of terms to refer to crops left in the field, such as surplus, ugly, culls, or seconds. For measurement purposes, it is helpful to categorize volume using categories that align with available markets. For example, we found these categories useful:
   – Marketable: First- and second-tier product that could be sold on the wholesale market.
   – Edible: Out-of-spec product that could be sold for processing.
   – Inedible: Cannot be sold.
5. Weigh and record the samples.

Project Seeks to Aid Beginning Farmers Raising Meat |The Sylva Herald

Helping new farmers raise meat| Southeast FarmPress | February 5, 2019

This article originally appeared in the Winston-Salem Journal.  Read the original version here.

By Michael Hastings

The NC Choices Carolina Meat Conference is holding its annual conference downtown at the Millennium Center. The conference draws about 300 farmers, meat processors, chefs and others interested in meat production in North Carolina.

The conference is organized as part of NC Choices, an initiative of the Center for Environmental Farming Systems. The Center for Environmental Farming Systems is a partnership of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, and North Carolina State University.

The NC Choices initiative is designed to promote sustainable food systems throughout the state. It assists farmers and others with educational programs, networking and technical assistance.

The conference, which began Monday and concludes Tuesday afternoon, offers a variety of seminars and workshops. More than 40 speakers and 20 sessions have been covering such topics as pasture-raising of livestock, pork butchery, dry curing, marketing, and tax and business strategies.

The conference in particular focuses on humane treatment of animals, sustainable livestock and farming practices, and efforts to engage consumers who are interested in locally, sustainably raised meat.

Keynote speaker Urvashi Rangan spoke Monday night about the efforts to produce meaningful food labels for sustainably grown products. “There are super-high numbers” in surveys that show consumer support for local farm food, pesticide- and chemical-free food, and environmentally friendly practices, said Rangan, an advisor on food-safety issues and a member of the FDA Food Advisory Committee. “People want these kinds of foods and they are willing to pay more for them.”

Food labels, though, need improvement to help consumers navigate through the many layers of sustainable practices. Some, such as “natural,” are virtually meaningless in their present uses and can be even misleading.

But some new labels, such as the private Regenerative Organic Certified, which is said to go beyond Certified Organic, show promise.

A 2013 survey by NC Choices put sales of local meat in North Carolina at $20 million a year. The survey also found that more than 90 percent of N.C. meat farmers planned to maintain or expand their businesses.

“In 2011 when the Carolina Meat Conference first started, we weren’t sure if the concept of spending more money for pastured meat, eating it less often, and using the whole animal was ever going to turn into a national trend,” said Sarah Blacklin, the director of NC Choices. “Now, groups like the Chef’s Collaborative’s Meat Matters Conference, the New England Meat Conference, Lamb Stock, and dozens of local meat businesses and online bulk buying programs from the East Coast to the West Coast are taking off. It’s a really good sign of the growing interest from chefs, consumers and farmers eager to support an alternative market for local pastured meats that prioritizes animal welfare. However, we still have a lot of problem-solving to do, which is why we are all coming together for conferences like this to address some of the successes and the challenges head on.”

The conference drew a variety of people, including local chefs John Bobby of Rooster’s: A Noble Grille and Jeff Bacon of Providence Restaurant and Catering. During a networking hour Monday, Buxton Hall, a barbecue restaurant in Asheville, served chicken bog with pork hash and pickled okra. Wild Turkey Farms of China Grove served with smoked beef with sriracha mayonnaise. Foothills Meats of Asheville brought mortadella and a variety of other cured meats. Left Bank Butchery of Saxapahaw served homemade liverwurst.

Attendees included Bob Shipley, who along with his son, is keeping his family’s 1872 farm alive in Vilas by raising pastured beef. “This conference has a good balance of academic research and actual production issues,” he said.

Also in attendance was Andrew Long, chef at Over Yonder in Valle Crucis. “Last time I was here I learned a lot about lesser-utilized cuts – meats that people might like if they tried them,” he said. “I want to learn more of that kind of thing.”

And some attendees came from other states, too. Sep Harvin runs Williamsburg Packing Co. in Kingstree, S.C., a meat processor that caters to small farmers who practice sustainable agriculture. “North Carolina has one of the best sustainable programs out there,” he said.

Youth participating in Rooted in Community’s annual food justice conference perform a puppet show focused on climate justice in Center City Park. (photo by Lauren Barber)

This article originally appeared in the Triad City Beat.  Read the original version here.

By Lauren Barber

Under the partial cover of Center City Park’s wooden pavilion, youth performers steered colossal pole puppets — faceless gray suits symbolizing big oil, giant fists in shades of brown labeled “People power” and “El poder de la gente,” and vibrant flags representing wind, air and sun — but not before a proper introduction.

Last week, the NC Climate Justice Summit hosted the annual Rooted in Community food-justice conference for youth in Greensboro. The theatrical performance, an adaptation of the NC Climate Justice’s roadshow, marked the third and final day of the youth gathering and highlighted economic, environmental and social-justice issues. Expert puppet artists from Paperhand Puppet Intervention showed a different group of young people and families to how to create the puppets earlier this year with the goal of enabling them to use puppets to shape the narrative of justice movements.

Bevelyn Ukah is the youth coordinator for the Food Youth Initiative, the local organization that orchestrated the event. She was among the mentors and organizers who honored Goldie Wells, interim councilwoman and candidate for District 2, and Christina Young, professor and director of public health and education at UNCG, for their contributions to furthering environmental and social justice. The honorees emphasized the importance of young voices in movement building.

Two days prior to the show, youth led their own workshops, many of which focused on how the power of storytelling — and amplifying the stories of others — is key to moving hearts and minds on issues like climate change.

Ree Ree Wei, a 19-year-old youth leader associated with Transplanting Traditions Farm in Chapel Hill, attended a workshop focused on how to implement social media “as a tool to send a message to people that has a huge impact and leaves them thinking about others.”

As a Burmese refugee, she said that this type of training is an invaluable resource as she and others strategize for how to use writing and other creative practices to effect change.

Young people from as far away as the US Virgin Islands attended the Rooted in Community conference, and brought their stories with them.

Event emcee and local youth leader Noah McDonald said he learned about a primarily indigenous Lumbee youth-led project to convert a prison into a sustainable farm, museum and recreation center in Scotland County.

“They talked about the history of chain gangs in North Carolina and how our road systems were built almost entirely by African-American and Lumbee men,” McDonald said. “You can go in the museum and learn those stories and feel what it was like.”

Though few participants knew one another when they arrived in Greensboro, they moved in practiced unison on July 22.

“The youth group performed this for the first time two days ago,” Alyzza May, a member of the local planning committee, said. “It shows we can learn things quickly together… to create solutions to climate change which, in part, is bringing down big oil and corporations that are extracting from our communities.”

To the pounding of djembe drums, hand-held xylophones and the rattle of snare drums, performers chanted, “We resist until we rise; We stand up for lives!” and proudly hoisted their battle flags. After several scenes in which the giant hands labeled “people power” met the suits, pipelines and methane gas, three immense-yet-elegant green giants with human-like faces graced the outdoor stage. Flowing clothes of various shades of green draped the oversized puppets effervescent leaf hands and large, pink flowers affixed to the flipside of the puppets’ faces seemed to symbolize hopefulness, if not simply a reverence for nature.

At the finale, youth performers paraded their puppets around the periphery of Center City Park while the chorus of djembe drums and chanting continued. The encircling march indicated to everyone within its path that they are now part of this story.

As one of the youth’s props urged, the time had come to “look, listen and decide.”