In early October, days after flood waters of the Mills River receded on his farmland, Jason Davis took a look around what was left of his 1,400 acres after Hurricane Helene.
What he saw was massive chunks of his farmland gone. Where land remained, fields were cut in half by the river. Hundreds of downed trees and massive rocks lined the property.
“ It washed anything that was in the floodway,” Davis said. The damage included his crops – mostly corn and tomatoes in the field that the river cut through – as well as irrigation equipment and other planting infrastructure.
The large craters in the land took “a thousand loads of dirt to fill,” according to Davis.
He employed his three sons to help him rebuild riverbanks – sometimes using massive rocks that were deposited by the rushing waters and other times using dirt from nearby landslides. They also worked to level his fields so that water could flow evenly. It will be late March before he can plant again on his Henderson County property, he said.
Still, he needs to fix fences and find topsoil – something hard to come by as hundreds of other farmers in the area scramble to prep their lots in time for the spring planting season.
The recovery work came at a cost.
Davis took out loans from AgSouth Farm Credit, an agricultural lending cooperative, and he received grants to fund the estimated $2 million in damaged infrastructure.
Like hundreds of farmers across western North Carolina, Davis hopes federal funds will start flowing to offset some of his losses and help pay debts incurred for repairs.
The losses extended beyond the repair. He also lost revenue from crops that were washed away in the storm.
County officials in Henderson County, where Davis’ North River Farms is located, estimated $38 million dollars in lost revenue from damaged or destroyed crops. The loss makes up only about a quarter of the total loss for farmers in the area, according to the county.
“ Right now, farmers are having to step out on faith, and they're having to make a decision to repair their land in order to be able to put a crop in here in 2025,” he said. “I had to make that decision. I knew that we could not go a year without having a crop.”
Federal aid: a tipping point
Farmers across the country are looking to Washington for relief. In December, Congress allocated $21 billion to help farmers recover from natural disasters. The funds were part of a larger package, signed into law by then-President Joe Biden, that set aside $31 billion in economic relief for farmers.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has not yet announced how this aid will be distributed, according to a report from the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois.
For Davis and others in western North Carolina, the future of their farms depends on financial assistance.
“ The impacts of not receiving assistance would mean that we would be forced to sell land,” Davis said. “Land is probably our most precious, valuable asset. We have to have land to farm, we have to have land to produce.”
Henderson County Cooperative Extension Director Terry Kelley said multiple farmers told him the financial pressures forced them to sell their land. The decision is one that more Henderson farmers could face, he said.
“In a couple of months, our growers are going to get a check from somebody. It's either going to be the government or a developer,” he said. “At some point, they have to make a decision to move forward with their operation or to close it down and retire.”
The federal funding addresses several different challenges America’s farmers wrestle with: $828 million in the Emergency Conservation Program (ECP) would help rehabilitate damaged farmland and $920 million in the Emergency Watershed Protection Program would address flood and erosion damages – like Davis saw on his land.
The legislation also directs $362.5 million toward rural development disaster assistance to help rebuild infrastructure in rural communities and allocated $220 million in state block grants to support disaster recovery efforts.
“ Unfortunately, none of that money has started to flow yet,” Kelley said. “We have had no information on how it's going to be allocated across the country or how it's going to be distributed when it is allocated.”
State lawmakers step in
While farmers await a move by federal authorities, some North Carolina officials are teeing up the issue at the state level.
North Carolina’s Office of State Budget and Management estimated the storm had a $4.9 billion impact on agriculture, according to a December assessment of Helene’s economic toll.
As part of a recent Helene recovery request, Gov. Josh Stein sought $150 million in aid for farmers. The state legislature approved the request last week.
The funding for the N.C. Department of Agriculture supports “natural restoration projects that enable farmers in the affected area to resume production and protect communities against additional flood damage,” as well as for crop loss programs to reimburse farmers.
A day after the bill passed, Republicans in the legislature filed another bill aimed at recovering lost revenue. The measure would allocate $475 million from the state's reserves to compensate farmers for their losses. The funds would cover up to 20% of farmers’ uninsured losses in 2024.
According to reporting by WUNC, the bill passed the House Agriculture and Environment Committee on Wednesday, and it now heads to the House Appropriations Committee.
The future of farming in WNC
Decisions in the halls of Congress and the state Capitol have ramifications for people in communities across the country, but politicians aren’t the only decision makers.
Davis, his wife and three sons made their decision to keep farming around their dinner table.
”We had some hard meetings the day after the storm,” Davis said. “I'm thankful that we made the decisions we made, and that's to work hard to overcome, restore, recover.”
Families are making similar assessments at dinner tables across the region as farmers debate whether to continue their work.
“I think that there are a lot of hard discussions that are currently taking place: how to finance this year's crop, how to market this year's crop, how to get their farms back,” Davis said.
Crop loss is only part of the equation. Davis estimated 75% of his revenue comes from crops that he sells locally and nationally, and the other 25% comes from agritourism, his nearby horse ranch, and his outfitter business that guides hunting and fishing trips.
In Henderson County, the loss of revenue from agritourism is about $10 million, according to county data.
“ Farmers are business people, too. They're no different than a restaurant owner or an antique store owner.” Kelley said. “When they lose revenue because of bad weather it doesn't come back."
“It's not like you can make it up the next week. I firmly believe that we've got a lot of farmers that are in really bad situations right now.”
