Troxler: NC farms under threat from rapid growth
North Carolina could lose as much as a fifth of its farmland to development by 2040. That was the warning Thursday from state Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler, who said the state needs to do more to preserve farmland now.
Speaking at this year’s Agricultural Development Forum, Troxler spoke about the many challenges rapid growth has brought to the state, including access to natural resources, outdated infrastructure and urban sprawl.
Agriculture in North Carolina is a $103 billion industry, the state's largest economic driver, and he said it’s especially vulnerable to those challenges.
“North Carolina ranks number three in the nation as far as the number of people that are moving in here,” Troxler said. “If you're dependent on natural resources like we are in agriculture, certainly there's going to be an impact and we're beginning to really feel that impact in North Carolina.”
Troxler said road construction is perpetually one step behind what’s needed, and the push to turn roads into highways makes it harder for farmers to move large equipment. The state’s power supply isn’t keeping up with growing demand, either, he added.
He cited water as another big concern, recalling the drought the state experienced beginning in 2007.
“There was a point between 2007 and 2011 that I think Raleigh got down to a 30-day water supply,” Troxler said. “How many people have moved to this area since then? Have you seen a new reservoir being built anywhere?”
But the most pressing concern, Troxler said, is the loss of farmland to urban encroachment and economic development. He said the American Farmland Trust ranks North Carolina the second most likely state to see large-scale farmland losses by 2040.
Out of about 8.3 million acres of present-day farmland, experts estimate the state will lose between 1.2 and 1.7 million acres over the next 15 years.
The state has protected 34,000 acres of farmland so far, but that’s just a drop in the bucket, Troxler said, and rising land prices are making it harder than ever to make headway.
For example, he said, Chatham County will be the site of a new 8,500-acre planned development and a 3,000-acre automotive plant. “So while we have worked our butts off to protect 34,000 acres of farmland, we’re going to lose 11,500 acres just like that.”
State lawmakers allocated $25 million for farmland preservation in the most recent budget, but Troxler called that “not nearly enough,” noting that New York has spent $250 million for upstate farm preservation there.
“You look at the states that have these really robust programs to protect farmland, the reason being they’ve already lost the most of it,” Troxler said. “We’ve got to be smarter than that in North Carolina. We've got to get ahead of the curve.”
“Heaven forbid we don't have the natural resources to feed ourselves. The last thing we want to do is to be dependent on another country to feed us. It never works,” Troxler said to applause from the crowd.
