Farm-City: City, rural
dwellers revitalize bonds

Edwards: Changes
in future of farming

Selby Scott, who has been attending the area’s Farm-City Week Banquet for the last 25 years, says it hasn’t changed much.

The 92-year-old former farmer and Pasquotank County commissioner said a lot of the same people have attended the banquet over the years to strengthen the bond between city folks and the farmers. But Scott said there was never much difference between those groups in Elizabeth City.

“A lot of the city people have a farm background anyway,” Scott said.

He recalled that the Kiwanis Club started the event about 30 years ago before the cooperative extension service in Currituck, Pasquotank and Camden counties took it over.

Pasquotank County Extension Director Travis Burke said the local event, usually involving about 300 people, is one of the more than 18,000 banquets held across the nation each year before Thanksgiving to celebrate Farm-City week.

“(It’s) just to recognize the importance of agriculture and city folk, helping them to coexist,” he said.

This year’s banquet-goers, assembled Tuesday at Elizabeth City State University’s K.E. White Graduate and Continuing Education Center, were a mix of local government officials and farming and non-farming residents.

Guest speaker for the event was Charlie Edwards, who formerly worked with the Raleigh Farmer’s Market for 16 years.

“One thing about growing up on a farm, it teaches you ... It’s going to help you later, you just don’t realize it when you’re a kid,” he said.

Edwards, who grew up on a farm in Alleghany County, said farm living can teach “patience and endurance and love of the land and animals and being prepared to work for little and sometimes nothing.”

It was while working at the farmer’s market, however, that he noticed changes in the industry, many of which the states’ 54,000 farmers are having to adapt, including different ways to market crops to remain successful.

Additionally, he said that while farmers have valuable land, they may not be making enough income from the crops grown on it to stay in business. Adding to the pressures on farmers is genetic engineering in food crops that is making it hard for some farmers to compete on flavor and appearance. “Average farmers may not be good enough,” he said.

Also, Edwards said the country is facing increasing competition from international products and crops that are often cheaper.

“We as a country could be facing a situation where we rely on other people to bring food to us,” he said.

The solution to improving the profitability of farming, he said, will depend on more discussion, compromise and unity.