Wild weather continues to test the resiliency of the most resilient — farmers who feed the world.
In a little over a month’s time, Category 4 Hurricane Helene ravaged parts of the southern U.S. when it made landfall on Sept. 26, followed days later by another deadly hurricane, Milton, which made landfall on the west coast of Florida Oct. 9. More recently, torrential rain fueled deadly flash flooding, Oct. 29, in the eastern Valencia region of Spain, home to an estimated 60% of that country’s citrus production.
Hurricane Helene was especially damaging in western North Carolina, where Steve Beltram and business partner Danielle Hutchison co-own TendWell Farm in Asheville and Old Fort, N.C.
“Tropical Storm Helene merged with another low-pressure system right on top of the Continental Divide on Mount Mitchell and dropped 30 inches of rain in 48 hours — 20 inches of which were in about seven hours,” Beltram said. “That’s why there was such massive flooding that went to the east and to the west, impacting communities and farms throughout western North Carolina and east Tennessee.”
“The scale of devastation is unfathomable,” Sandi Kronick, Happy Dirt CEO and co-founder, told The Packer in early November about Helene, the deadliest mainland hurricane since Katrina in 2005.
The Durham, N.C.-based organic produce company works with its network of farmers and customers across the country to increase consumer access to sustainably grown food and bring a variety of organic fruits and vegetables to market, including those from farms like TendWell in the western part of the state.
It’s not only the magnitude of weather-related events but also the frequency of such events that’s shocking, says Kronick.
“Many farmers that I work with have said they used to think they needed to budget for a bad season every seven years and now it’s really every three years,” Kronick said. “But even then, being financially prepared for a bad season is one thing.
“Nobody budgets for what Helene just did to farms in western North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee,” she continued. “The scale of Helene is not something that any farm would ever think to plan for.”
Lifting up community
Hurricane Helene thrust western North Carolina farmers into crisis mode, a situation compounded by flooded roads and no electricity, cell phone connections or plumbing, said Kronick, adding that plumbing still has not been fixed in some areas.
“What was really unique with this situation was the complete evisceration of roads, and that’s why in the first week or two after Helene everyone was really on their own to figure things out,” she said.
Happy Dirt stepped in and became a sort of hub, coordinating the purchase and collection of everything from water and diapers to generators and chainsaws, and reaching out to food banks and farm supply stores in a position to help. Using its connections with farmers and customers, Happy Dirt got a truck carrying supplies out to the impacted area on Day 2.
“Once we had one truck out, we knew we could keep doing it,” said Kronick. “We continued to collect materials and keep on shipping. We sent convoys of trucks and then started coaching other folks on how to get out there.”
Kronick sees farmers playing a pivotal role in not only lifting each other up, but also their communities — something she says they do day-in and day-out and through a crisis.
While TendWell Farm’s North Carolina season was cut short about a month early due to the storm and some of its equipment was damaged, Beltram says he feels blessed as no family members or employees were injured. It’s shipping facility was also unscathed.
“As a matter of fact, with the help of community members and the National Guard, we were able to distribute 40,000 pounds of tomatoes that we had in inventory and 50,000 pounds of ice to families that had no electricity for an extended period of time,” said Beltram.
Road to recovery
Happy Dirt says assessments are still in process and the full extent of damages and needs on farms won’t be revealed until these are completed, which it hopes will be by the end of the year. Farms are also working to document damage and report to the USDA’s Farm Service Agency, Natural Resources Conservation Service and nongovernment agencies that can assist farms with debris clean up, soil remediation, infrastructure repairs and replacement, and more.
But while Happy Dirt is working with its farmers to help wade through administrative details and collect and collate impact data, organic farmers face additional challenges to rebuilding after a hurricane.
“Beyond the initial flooding and devastation that our farms and communities have suffered due to Hurricane Helene, the recovery for many farmers will be a long, uphill journey,” said Taylor Holenbeck, grower services coordinator for Happy Dirt. “Many farms not only lost all their crops, equipment, farmworker housing and infrastructure on their farms, but they are also dealing with topsoil being washed away, with large deposits of silt and sand in their place.
“This means needing to replace greenhouses, fencing, implements, tractors, irrigation supplies, plastic and mulch; planting winter cover crops to establish new organic matter; and testing the fertility of the soils that have been washed away or have been buried with sediment,” he continued.
On farms where entire fall cash crops were lost, farmers may lose their ability to pay their farmworkers for the rest of the season, which puts everyone in difficult positions going into the winter, Holenbeck added.
For all farmers, soil and soil health are critical. But for organic farmers, the deep microbiologic activity that lives in the soil is essential to survival.
“What we saw was not just the complete loss of all their soil — their topsoil — but all this organic matter that it really takes organic farmers over 10 years to build to the level of desired activity,” said Kronick.
She sees a need for more advanced knowledge on soil remediation for organic farmers.
“Many farms will face fertility management challenges for years to come as they work to rebuild soils in flooded areas,” said Holenbeck.
Lessons in resiliency
Hurricane Helene has left an indelible mark on western North Carolina.
“How the water moves through farmers’ fields will never be the same,” said Kronick. “The rivers will need to be rewritten. The routes of water through that area are changed forever.”
The long-term effects of the intense flooding in the region are still yet to be seen, says Holenbeck.
“The repair of riparian buffers, reshaping of waterways and where farms will re-establish their growing land will all be important considerations moving forward into the spring season and beyond,” he said.
But while the physical, emotional and financial struggles faced by western North Carolina farmers are real, so too is the agriculture community’s resiliency.
“We have all been reaffirmed in the resilience of farmers in the face disasters such as Helene, as well as how much our food system communities can come together to support each other when in crisis,” said Holenbeck. “It has been overwhelming to see the amount of aid flowing into western North Carolina, and this recovery process will indeed take a village to get these communities back up and running.”
For Beltram, Hurricane Helene also shone a light on this resilient and supportive western North Carolina community.
“People rallied together to clear roads, fix bridges and distribute food, water and medicine,” he said. “Volunteers came from all directions. The National Guard came and has been doing amazing work.
“Infrastructure has been repaired 10 times faster than I would have expected,” he added. “It is unbelievable how many resources have been gathered up by local people and brought into this area. I am overwhelmed by the generosity in the state and country.”
For TendWell, which farms both sides of the Continental Divide in North Carolina to distribute risk over multiple watersheds, the destruction of Hurricane Helene was so widespread, it impacted all its North Carolina farms.
“I feel confident that there will be some disaster monies through USDA and the North Carolina Department of Agriculture that will help make us whole in the long run,” said Beltram. “Unfortunately, those programs usually take a long time, so managing the short-term cash flow disruption is going to be the biggest challenge to our business.”
Moving forward, Kronick says she hopes to see more long-term solutions in place.
“I don’t want to get back to normal in terms of just being surprised at the next crisis,” she said. “As much as we can do to support true solutions rather than Band-Aids, is what we need to focus on in order to provide more resiliency and support for farmers in the long run.”
Weathering the next storm
As the frequency and force of weather events around the world accelerates, farmers will continue to tap into their powers of resiliency. But they can’t do it alone, says Happy Dirt.
“Farmers will have to be more adaptable as our climate shifts and becomes more unstable, and this is something that our farmers will need more and more support with as we see an increased number of these disasters,” said Holenbeck. “This can take many forms, such as more widespread crop insurance for farmers big and small; larger subsidies and grant opportunities for farmers effected by natural disasters; more farm service providers on the ground ready to assist farms immediately after disasters; better mental health support for farmers post-disaster; and more incentives for growing practices that support the sustainability of the land and ecology that we rely on to grow our food.
“Hurricane Helene is and will continue to be a litmus test for future response efforts and learning the needs of our farmers through this process will be vital to how we respond in the future,” he said.
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