NC Agriculture Trends Over The Last 25 Years
Me
Overview
Reporting in progress.
We were given a couple project-based assignments during the Lede Program. The topic could be whatever we wanted it to be. That same day, I received a newsletter from a local butcher that I frequent. In it, he said that their founding partner, a small-scale hog farmer and beloved community member, is stepping back from the business.
Funding for assistance that has helped the farmer gain access to farming resources has, in her words, "dried up".
“This will change the work of many people who have helped farms like ours access resources and remain viable in a world where, for a generation, the motto has been, ‘Get big or get out.’”
For my first project I chose to look at agriculture data for North Carolina. I was curious to see if this was a trend.
- How many other small farms are closing across North Carolina or even the whole country?
- What funding has "dried up" and how vital was to small farms?
- What level of policy was responsible for this and who were the decision-makers?
- What is replacing small-scale farms? Large commercial farms? Residential development?
The data was published by United States Department of Agriculture in tandem with North Carolina Department of Agriculture.
There are, indeed, interesting trends for farms in North Carolina. Below are simple charts created in DataWrapper. More on this soon.
Techs
python
datawrapper
