North Carolina Rising

NC International Agriculture Opportunity

Made in China.

If you've bought anything recently, you recognize the stamp. While a lot of manufacturing takes place overseas, North Carolina has an edge in one very important industry: Agriculture.

With demand growing, Tarheel farmers have been banking record prices for grains, cotton and soybeans.

Agriculture is the best game in town if you ask North Carolina Commissioner of Agriculture, Steve Troxler. "Agriculture and agribusiness is the number one business in North Carolina, at 74 Billion dollars. People forget that. But to put it in perspective the next largest would be the military at 20 Billion dollars. So we're 3 times larger than the next largest industry. In the rural areas of North Carolina, agriculture is the engine that drives all the rural economies."

And exports, according to Troxler, account for 26 percent of the AG economy in the state.

Peter Thornton is Assistant Director of International Marketing for North Carolina's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. He explains, "Our biggest challenge is getting the people to recognize the value in exports."
How do you do that? "One on one. I drink a lot of coffee."And Thornton takes a lot of trips abroad.

Building relationships between the state's farmers and customers overseas is so important, to the North Carolina Agriculture Department just invested 15 Thousand dollars to open an office in Beijing., China.

Paul Chang is the state's Chief Agriculture Representative in China. It was almost midnight when we caught up with him via Skype. Chang says, The farms in china are small, only an acre or two in size, and the work is labor intensive- mostly by hand as it was hundreds of years ago. With limited land and a growing population, there's more demand and more desire for different kinds of food. "Having an office there makes us more proactive. We don't have to wait for them to come to us."

Troxler adds, "We're not the only Department of Agriculture doing this kind of promotion. We're taking it to another level. It's grown to 3 billion since 2008, 38% higher in 2010, could be over 3 billion."

Tobacco is still North Carolina's golden leaf when it comes to exports. Wood products and soybeans also top the list.

"We know we will be feeding the world. For years farmers have struggled to make ends meet. This is one of the best opportunities farmers have ever had," says Lenoir County farmer Kenneth Bartlett.

Bartlett and Ward Shaw from Columbus County recently traveled on a trade mission to China, with the North Carolina Soybean Association picking up their tab. Both farmers are optimistic about opportunities abroad, but Shaw warns farming communities have a few hurdles to overcome. He explains, fewer young people are going into the business and today's operations are more efficient, farming more land with less help. Shaw says, "You give farmers the opportunity we will produce, but it's going to be in fewer hands and that don't help the employment situation."

But it should help those who continue to farm to get higher prices for what they grow in some of North Carolina's most economically challenged counties.