Seeing the Forest for the Trees

The absolute sideways punch of the current federal government funding cuts has left millions of Americans wondering where we're headed as a country. Now, as a nonprofit, we do not have a partisan stance, but we do know there are federal policies that are negatively affecting farms and people affected by hurricane Helene in our region. I had been working with our social media interns to come up with some really positive blog posts. However, my mind cannot stop diverting to how hard farming is going to become if we continue to give power to billionaires that are pulling strings in the name of efficiency! All the while, they are hurting working class Americans. Hurricane Helene happened in September 2024 and we are at the 6 month mark post storm. It was unlike any experience I will probably live through in my lifetime. While we did not lose as much in comparison to other farms, it has still been very financially and physically difficult to regain our footing from the Hurricane. At The Full Moon Farm Collective, we spent the first month of recovery focused on clearing land for the power lines to be restored, rehabilitating the creek, cleaning out fields, repairing fencing, and clearing down trees. In November, we were enrolled in the Farm Service Agency ECP to repay our personal work and investment to fix the agricultural side of these problems by the Hurricane. Like thousands of Western NC farms, this work is part of helping our community and maintaining not just an enterprise, but food that feeds real people in a reliable way. Our farm, like many area farms, has waited 5 months to be approved for federal aid through this program. With the current federal budget and employment cuts we worry that we may not get paid or worse, many farms will not receive the federal aid they too deserve. 

On the national scale, the USDA has cut $1 billion from programs that buy local food to be distributed for schools, low income families, and community aid programs across the country. This includes cutting a program we've been part of since 2020 called FarmShare where we could deliver produce to the High Country Food Hub, get paid a fair price, and all of the food would be distributed to families who need assistance. These are families in our community that can feel an impact when they get around $30 worth of local food. FarmShare was a consistent source of revenue, especially after Hurricane Helene for The Full Moon Farm Collective and other small and medium farms. In October 2024, we had bulk produce that wasn't affected by the storm but was coming in all at once. Things like broccoli, cauliflower, and celery were not going to store for long enough to when people were able to get back to local markets or restaurants. Thankfully, we were able to sell our food through the FarmShare program and get food to people that really were struggling after the Hurricane. Much of this produce would have been wasted if it had not been distributed through that federal program. And in comparison to the many, many ways we waste money in this country, I think most Americans would agree that local food going to people who need it is a very easy win. So, that's just one very tiny cut in comparison to all of the hundreds of thousands of federal jobs lost from these federal orders. How many Americans are reorganizing their entire lives and their kids' lives because of these cuts? Even federal programs that support farmers with loans or buying new equipment or subsidized food production have been cut too. There are farmers that have taken out $100,000 in loans for new equipment through the NRCS and now there's no funding in those programs. These farmers are left on the wayside, having already taken out these loans. In 2022, our farm had been part of one of these programs and the stipulation is that you buy the equipment first then get reimbursed. If this happened to us we would have not been able to pay for the farm season that year. 

I was actually supposed to be writing this whole blog post about biochar, per our website planning team. The irony is that even the federal cuts have done away with the Climate Smart program which funded the biochar kiln rental in our area. To quickly explain biochar: it is “like charcoal” and is used as a compost additive to increase water absorption, microbiology, and soil nutrition. Biochar applied to soil/compost has been shown to increase crop yields by 4 times! Biochar is made using a low-tech kiln to burn wood in a low oxygen state. Immediately after the Hurricane, local agriculture producers realized we could burn the downed trees to create biochar. We have been fortunate enough to use the biochar kiln provided by Working Landscapes and Climate Smart. We burned the branches of trees that couldn’t be used for firewood or lumber. The employees of these programs have been let go or transferred because of the federal cuts. Our farm had signed a five year agreement to institute these environmental practices and to be paid around $3,000 per year to follow the protocols and submit financial and environmental impact data. That agreement is now null. 

There are thousands of other farms, just like us. doing their very best in hard times. Farming teaches you to expect the unexpected and handle failure daily. What is beyond reason is how the federal government is bulldozing public programs, entire agencies, and financial plans meant to help working Americans. Our farm cannot educate others about helpful land care without the spotlight on how the federal changes are going to negatively impact agriculture for decades. When we lose a farm, we lose the effort of at least one generation, but typically many generations, of people that have invested in the land to grow food. I hope that our story is just one of many that becomes a call for accountability. As a Collective, we do not advocate for any partisan group or political party because that is not our purpose and it goes against our values. Our purpose is to grow food, educate people, and support each other for community resiliency. And part of that is maintaining the funding structures that have allowed our community to thrive, such as through the USDA and the NRCS, and the federal support that we get as a farm. May we all continue to share our resources in neighborly aid and to advocate for a return to sensible financial management of public benefit.