1999 - 2000 Broadcast Season
Broadcast Program Transcripts
Episode #1505

Holloway: The number one industry in North Carolina is agriculture, an industry that has already suffered greatly in 1999 due to falling commodity prices and a $48 million drought. Now it sustains another hard hit, the blow of Hurricane Floyd. How do farmers recover, and who is looking out for the interests of black farmers? We will take your comments by telephone and talk about these issues next on another live edition of Black Issues Forum. Stay with us. [THEME MUSIC] And good evening and welcome to another live edition of Black Issues Forum. Our focus tonight, issues facing the agriculture industry, and in particular, the state's farmers. joining us tonight to answer questions, we have Roth Blizzard with the office of the North Carolina State Senate pro-tem, president pro-tem. Also, Archie Hart, from the State Department of Agriculture. And Wayne Harold, an Edgecomb Country farmer. Welcome to the program each of you. I'd like to remind you watching to call us with your comments tonight. Keep them brief, the phone lines are open and the number to call toll free is 1-800-555-3120. Wayne, let's go directly to you. People really, it is probably easy to think that this flood issues is over if you are across the state, and not in eastern North Carolina. But you are a farmer who has been directly affected by this. Tell the listeners and viewers across the state how your land and your farm has been affected by this flood.

Harold: Well, at our farming situation where we were, we had approximately three feet of water across a big portion of our farmland. And it took about ten to fourteen days for that to reside. And since then, we have been working every day, day in and day out, to try to clean up and remove the debris and get things back into functioning. And also, we've attempted to harvest some of these crops, but they are damaged quite severely, and we've lost a lot of money out there.

Male: Now, we've been talking before this thing started, and you seemed to still have a real good attitude, despite losing all that. What keeps you going?

Harold: You have to keep on trying. You have to keep on making the effort, and we want to do that. And eastern North Carolina is strong enough to get by this even though we do have problems and what have you. But it is not going to be easy, and it is going to be a long slow road for us back, and what have you. But I believe that hard work makes you be successful and that is what we strive to is to continue to work hard and continue to work hard and say, "Can't we get over this and rebuild eastern North Carolina."

Male: Archie, let me ask you, before the hurricane came, and the floods, North Carolina farmers, particularly black farmers had sued the federal government, the US Department of Agriculture, not your state department. What has become of that since then?

Hart: Well, as of October, most of the farmers had submitted their final claims. But as of December, no monies have been given out to the farmers. But they are in the final phase of settling that particular law suit as it relates to black farmers.

Male: Okay, and let me go to Roth. Roth, you are with the Senate, with Mark Basnight's office. Let me ask you, his area is actually in eastern North Carolina. But we have viewers all across the state. Here is the research triangle park area, in the piedmont areas, a lot of technologies going on, we have a lot of the agriculture in the eastern part of the state. How can people in other parts of the state work together to benefit or help out hour neighbors in the east.

Blizzard: Well, I think right now, the communities are doing a lot from other parts of the state. For instance, the church that I attend right here in Raleigh has adopted a church down in the eastern part of the state. The thing about a disaster like this is that it does bring out the generous spirit in a lot of people and get people involved in trying to help others. I think there is an intrinsic desire inside of everybody to try to help others.

Holloway: Now, I want you all to think to about, people think a lot about helping regular folks that lost their houses. But we have a lot of farmers like Wayne that have lost everything. So think about that. Let's go to Columbus County. Now we have our first caller. Maybe we lost that caller. Caller are you there? From Columbus County? Okay, well, let's talk about that now then. Now can people around the state help farmers? Because Wayne, I understand that you really were not eligible and have not received funds form the state.

Harold: Let me first say Jay, that I really appreciate the help we have had from the community. It has been surpassing to me how well the private sector has gotten out and helped us, and has in our area, there have been several churches and several fire departments and what have you, Thanksgiving fire department. They have got an appropriate name because they came down and spent time with us and what have you. But actually, we are going to have to be able to have some assistance from our government sources. There has got to be some assistance, because now, there are too many losses. The crop losses on our farm were significant to the tune of approximately $1&1/2 million. And that is the kind of debt load that you don't recover from in a short period of time. And so what we are going to have to do is there is going to have to be some kind of government assistance to help the farmers get back on our feet and what have you. As of yet, there has been a lot of talk and not a whole lot of action.

Holloway: Let's go back to our government official. A lot of talk, no action. You don't represent all of the people that are dispersing these funds, but you have to admit that that is a criticism that a lot of people are saying now. How do government officials like you response?

Male: Well, as we look at it from the state department of agriculture point of view, we did try to take some action with a disaster relief fund and we have sent some check out to the farmers in the state. Those monies went out last week, so we know it is not going to cover everything, but we want to do what we can. And commissioner Graham is committed to doing those little things and also the big things to try to help our farmers during this time of dire situation.

Blizzard: We also have a number of federal disaster programs, and Governor Hunt has been working very hard to get access to those and getting Congress to move on making appropriations to those and getting Congress to move on making appropriations to those. In fact, we had roughly $540 million in crop losses, and the Governor has been trying to encourage Congress to appropriate funds as he has done before in other disasters so that we can try to get this money to these farmers so that they can be helped.

Holloway: This is the number one industry in North Caroline, agriculture. We had $48 million drought just before that, on top of the situation. When you have something like that, in addition to other people losing their homes, and you have got to go through all this process, you know, and maybe it is unfair to ask you all this question, why can't you just leave all these formalities alone, give the people what they need, you know they have lost everything. And they are having to wait, why can't this happen?

Male: Well, I think you have to first get an accounting of exactly what they need. Obviously, if we didn't sit down.

Holloway: He's lost everything.

Male: If we didn't sit down and talk to Wayne and find out exactly what he has lost, we wouldn't know exactly how much he would need, and then you may get an imbalance. Wayne was speaking earlier - he said it is a very unfair flood. And there may be a farmer upstream that didn't have any damage at all. So you'd have to go out and actually know where the damage is so that you can make a determination on where to make those payments too. Now, granted, we need to do that a lot faster, and we are working on trying to find that way to find that way to do it faster.

Holloway: That's the assumption that you have the money in place. Right now we don't even have the money.

Male: That is correct. If we get what the house appropriations package was at the put together, we could possibly cover 42% of the loss. 42 % of the agricultural loss that is out there. Now, I'd ask Wayne, would 42% make you completely whole?

Harold: No, 42% will make me 42% of whole. And that is a problem that we have. And I don't want you to think that these guys aren't working, because we did get a small check from the commissioner's office. And Roth sat down with me 10 days after the storm. And so him and Senator Basnight's staff have really been working hard and trying to make the effort to put forward and what have you. But there are a lot of regulations and red tape and what have you. There are a lot of these crops for example, that we felt like we shouldn't attempt to harvest. They weren't worth attempting to harvest, and we couldn't get a simple waiver to say no, don't harvest these things. And that is something that it didn't take a lot of organization to do- it should have been done very simply. But it didn't get done. It was one of those things, it was too much bureaucracy between what we were trying to do and what needed to be done and what was the best for the situation. There have been a lot of monies, Jay, spent for going after bad money, so to speak. You spend ten dollars just to get back five. Because that is what the rules say. So that is a struggle for us.

Holloway: Let's go to a caller. We are talking about Senator Basnight and his from Dare Country. Caller go right ahead with you comment or question please, and that you for joining us this late night.

Harold: Yes. Can you hear me?

Holloway: Yes, we can go right ahead.

Harold: In just getting back to what the gentlemen said in spending $10 to recover five - The suggestion that I have is that we turn around and tack on a ten dollar fee to all homeowners policies so that it helps these farmers recover the funds and unfortunate circumstances where they are not covered. We have enough homeowners policies where we can tack on a minimal amount to help these farmers because the name of the game is everybody has to help one another. And the reason I say that is that I happen to be a catastrophe adjuster.

Holloway: Let me ask you a question. Are you talking about across the state or across the country?

Caller: It should be across the country.

Holloway: Okay. Well, thank you for your comment. And thank you for joining us tonight. Let's get a reaction from that.

Male: We can send money. We can send it here, we can send it California, we can send it to the Midwest. We can send it Turkey. That is one of the big squabbles that I hear in Washington this week was Turkey had another earthquake so they need to divide the money.

Holloway: That's a good point.

Male: And they do need to divide the money and help them a little bit, but I know who pays that tax bill.

Holloway: Well, you know, I don't know if it is in the Bible, but it is certainly an old saying that charity starts at home. I think that is what you are saying.

Harold: Well, I am not a person that likes to beg. I don't like to beg. I don't like to be in this position. And I told Roth when I went to see him to begin with, I don't want to have to beg for this. But this is a special and unusual circumstance. If I felt like I had done something wrong or the people in my community had not done their job, and had been lazy or not striven to do their best, then I wouldn't feel this way. But once that rain started, and once that river started to rise, we were at the mercy of whatever positions fell upon us, and it would be similar to them dropping a bomb in the middle of Raleigh. If they dropped a bomb in the middle of Raleigh and you were here, then it would affect you and there wouldn't be anything that you could do about it. That is the circumstances we found ourselves in.

Holloway: You think about that view as if that were done at your home, you'd be feeling the same way Wayne is and the same way a lot of your neighbors are in Eastern North Carolina. Let's go to another caller now. Please go ahead with your comment or question.

Caller: Hello. My name is Arthur Vandray. I am from Pantiga , North Carolina. I'd like to know how much of this relief money is going towards what is left of the small farmer in Eastern North Carolina, and how much of it is going towards corporate entities.

Holloway: Let's go to our Department of Agriculture. How much is going to the small farmer verses the corporate entities?

Male: Well, I think as we have stated right now, nothing is going to anybody. And I don't think it is being broken down in that way. I think it is being looked at based on the needs but primarily most of that money is going to be going to our small family farmers. That is the ones that we are looking at.

Holloway: Now, we are a couple months out from the flood. And we are still having these delays. Explain to our viewers why we are having these delays.

Male: Again, this has been a catastrophic flood and we are just trying to adjust to new rules because this has never happened before. And I think all the agencies are doing the best they can and assessing and getting information. I think that has been one of the problems, just the assessing period that we are in right now. And once we can get through that I think everything will start rolling.

Male: And Jay, another thing is that we are trying to convince another group of people that are miles away from here in Washington DC, that aren't down here, that don't see it, our Congressional delegation sees it and they are fighting hard for it, but we are trying to convince people in a far off place that are kind of out of sight out of mind. It is appalling that we don't have a response yet. When you look back at Hurricane Andrew in 1992, there was appropriated 5.8, 5 billion dollars. It was done in 36 days after the storm. And there is no reason why North Carolina shouldn't be getting that type of treatment.

Holloway: Well, this has certainly been a tremendous thing. We are talking about more than 30,000 farms have been affected across the state. 90,000 workers. 85% of the lost crops were not insured, as I understand it, because they were located outside the flood plain. So this is a catastrophic, very damaging flood. What about this charity starting at home here? We can help out people in Turkey, help out folks other places. But the turkeys aren't helping us out here.

Male: That is the very frustration that a lot of the members of the General Assembly have seen and have actually expressed earlier this week in this governmental operations meeting is the fact that we do see these rather large payments going elsewhere. And I don't think we begrudge other folks that, but at the same time, we believe that we should be getting our fair share of it. We certainly demonstrated the loss, there is no question that we have the losses that we have, and it is time for the government at all levels to step up and take action.

Holloway: I want to remind our viewers that you can call in right now. We are taking your calls live. 1-800-555-3120. We are talking about the floods as result of Hurricane Floyd. Specifically, we are talking about agriculture tonight. Let me go back to Wayne now. Many - are you a small family farm? Or are you midsize or what size?

Harold: There are three families in my farm, and we tend to approximately 5,000 acres in Edgecomb County. And I noticed the caller a while ago, he wanted to know about corporate farms and small farms and whatever. And to give you an example, I think for a 1000 acre farmer, you are talking about a million dollars worth of cash flow. That is what it takes to operate that farm starting in January and finishing by the end of the year. And that is why we are in such bad plight. We tend 5000 acres, so you see it takes a little over 4 million dollars to cash flow our farm. We are not a large family farm; our average gross net income may be in the 70 to 80 thousand dollar range, and so that is not excessive. It is basically when you say I am putting 4 million dollars worth into the economy around the area, or what have you. So a corporate farm is not what it appears to be, but I wouldn't consider us a small family farm, but we are a medium sized family farm, there are some that are bigger and some that are smaller. But in order to be able to have what you need to support a family, I feel like you have got to be at the size that we are. If just decreasing size would turn us a profit then that would be the thing to do.

Holloway: Let me ask you. Many of these farms are family farms, whether it is regardless of the size, if they had lost everything, they are now maybe having to consider, if they can't recover, looking for another line of work. What is the state department going to do to help them in this transition, because it is a transition no matter what.

Male: And it is not only going to take the state department of agriculture to help a lot of our farmers to look for alternatives, for lack of better words, but it is going to take the whole system, the community colleges, the whole gamut to help our farmers to survive because.

Holloway: Do you want to add to that?

Male: I would just say you have to remember too, in many of these communities, especially in the East, the farmer is the hub of the community. He keeps the tractor dealership in business, he keeps the local grocery store in business, keeps the churches going, pays the taxes that keep the schools going -

Holloway: [INAUDIBLE]

Male: That's exactly right. And we've got to find someway to preserve the farmer and put them in a position where, I remember when Wayne first came and talked with us, he said it best. He said, "I don't want a handout, I just want to be able to keep my operation going." And I think by doing that, by keeping those operations going, you can keep these communities going, and rebuild these communities to the extent that we can continue to move forward. The east has lagged behind for several years, but we need to keep these guys there so that they don't fall further behind.

Holloway: I'm ______ a number of people are calling to get numbers for FEMA and other situations, and we are going to give you those numbers at the end of the program, but you can call in now with just a few minutes left for questions or comments about agriculture in our state, and if you'd like to pose a question to any of our panelists tonight. Let's go to a caller right now, as a matter of fact, in Wilkes County. Go right ahead please, with your comment or question.

Caller: Yes, hi. How are you?

Holloway: Fine, and you? Thank for staying up late.

Caller: My question, or my comment really is that I believe that when there is any disaster, and I live in North Carolina, but not in the flood area, but I believe that when there is any disaster in the United States that the United States government should make sure that that is taken care of with all money and all way possible before they start sending money to disaster victims in other countries.

Holloway: Thank you for your call, or your comment. We appreciate that. And also, what people need to think about if you are outside of this area, and how would it impact you, just think about if, for whatever reason tonight, if you got ready to go to bed, instead of going to bed, you had to get up and leave your house. And when you left, you were closing the door, and there wasn't really a possibility of you coming back. And my wife said, "Well, I need my baby pictures of our children." That was what was important to her. But just imagine if you had to walk out and close that door and leave them there, and never come back to it. Because that is what a lot of people in eastern North Carolina did face.

Holloway: That is exactly, and we were going to show a feature that they ran on North Carolina Now, just showing that. And we know a lot of people did. Let's talk, about four minutes left here. Many farmers like Wayne had damage. He mentioned three feet of water over how many days.

Harold: 10 to 14.

Holloway: How does that affect the land and the future usability of that land. Either Wayne or Archie.

Archie: Well, it doesn't really matter either way. Right now, we don't know. We are doing soil tests. We started, in fact, I believe the USDA came out and did some tests of their own on some of our farmland now, and what have you. And we can see things beginning to come back and come back to life, and it is not as simple to walk down there now, walk down the street and see. I am hoping that we will be back to normal.

Male: Our ergonomics division is going out. We have regional agronomists throughout the state. And they are going out and checking the land and checking the fertility to see what it is going to take to bring the land back to the way it was. So the department was active in the area.

Holloway: Okay. I think we can fit one more caller into the show. Moore County. Go right ahead, please, with your comment or question.

Caller: Yes, I am wondering, is there someone in Washington that as a citizen, not in a county that had the flood, Moore County, but is there someone we could write to, someone we could petition to say, "Please be faster."

Holloway: Stay on the call. Roth, can you address that?

Roth: As I said earlier, I don't want to discount anything that the North Carolina members of Congress are doing, but I think you can write the Congressional leadership in the Senate. Senator Lott. Senator Dashiell. I think you can write the Congressional leadership of the House. Speaker Hastert. And let these folks know what is going on. And let these folks know what types of pains we are actually feeling down here.

Holloway: Is that okay, caller? Are you there? Okay. We just have a few more minutes left. Let me go back to the black farmers. We talked about their situation earlier. Nothing has been dispersed. But basically, they sued the US department, and the US department admitted years of discrimination. And not getting loans. So, the black farmers had the drought that everyone else had, and the floods, and then also ten or twenty years of admitted discrimination. And so is it permissible to say they are already in a tough situation. Are any specific things being done for them?

Male: And I have to say that all farmers are in a tough situation right now, but yes, there are some efforts that are being undertaken through the land grant universities, North Carolina A& T, the Congressional black caucus, and our department of agriculture, along with _______ Clayton, looking at some ways to help this specific audience. And there are going to be some gatherings throughout the state to make sure the black farmers understand about certain programs that are out there and available to them.

Holloway: And we can let our viewers know, if they would like to know more about the land loss prevention project in Durham who is on top of that situation.

Holloway: Roth, any last minute comments you would like to make before we conclude?

Roth: I'd just like to thank you for having the opportunity to be here. And give this forum to let the people of the state know what the needs are in the east. And we hope that it will be helpful for the folks that weren't in the flooded areas to know more about what is going on and let them know that there still is a very deep need out there.

Holloway: And we know it is, we wish the best to you Wayne, and your family, and to other farmers out there in North Carolina. Thank you, gentlemen. We are completely out of time, I do want to thank our guests for being out there and joining us late tonight. And as always, we will have the numbers as I mentioned earlier, following the program, so you can get the information about donations, volunteering, recovery, and assistance. Or you can contact us here at the network. Please join us again next Friday night at eleven on UNC-TV for a Thanksgiving weekend pre-recorded program on solutions for families recovering from the flood waters of Hurricane Floyd. But we will be back the following week to take your calls live. For all of us at the Black Issues Forum late night crew, I am Jay Holloway. You have a blessed evening and a good night.