- [Anita Brown Graham] Coming up on "ncIMPACT", extreme weather events are changing the economy and how we live.

Let's look at how farmers are adapting and thriving, amid a changing climate.

- [Male Narrator] "NC Impact" is a PBS North Carolina production, in association with the University of North Carolina school of Government.

Funding for "ncIMPACT" is made possible by... - [Female Narrator] Changing the course of people's lives, that's the impact UNC Health, and the UNC School of Medicine, work to deliver every day.

Our 40,000 team members across the state of North Carolina are committed to caring for you, our patients and communities, as well as educating the next generation of healthcare professionals.

Individually, we can do a little, but collectively, we can do a lot to create impact.

- Welcome to "ncIMPACT", I'm Anita Brown-Graham.

Farmers across our state are dealing with crop loss and other issues related to extreme weather events, events, such as flooding and droughts.

A recent report by the state predicts that increases in extreme precipitation are likely to increase inland flooding, causing further economic and agricultural losses in North Carolina.

"ncIMPACT"s Evan Howell spent time with one farmer who's no stranger to adversity.

He looks at the changing climate as an enemy he just might have to live with.

- This blocks a lot of the UV rays.

- [Evan] Davon Goodwin was severely injured by an IED blast while in patrol in Afghanistan in 2010.

He came back to North Carolina with a goal to farm, something he saw as almost therapeutic.

- Turned into kind of a business model, and something I have a high-level of passion for.

Because I need to be able to mitigate my risk- - [Evan] But climate change has put a strain on that business model.

He's now $400,000 in debt, and concerned about the impact that may have on his family.

His small 42-acre grape farm, in the Sandhill region, remains vulnerable.

In 2016, Hurricane Matthew destroyed 40% of his crop.

- The property that we're standing on now was actually underwater.

And so that was kind of one of those things that is very scary to us, because the fact that that will probably happen again.

I mean, it was sad that you couldn't have, you know, 100-year flood, you know, but now we've had, you know, three or four of those in the last five years.

- [Evan] Hurricane Matthew left at least 24 dead, and destroyed more than 2,000 homes along the coast, from wind and flooding, costing the state an estimated $5 billion in economic output.

When Hurricane Florence made landfall just two years later, it happened again.

Over a four day period, over 9 trillion gallons of water poured over the Eastern and Central part of the state, killing at least 30, and costing the state over $1 billion in crop and livestock losses.

It became known as a new flood of record for the area.

- And so that's the thing that keeps you up at night.

You know, every time we look at the weather, when there's a hurricane, will we be able to brace ourselves enough to be able to recover?

Because when a storm runs through here, it's gonna rip these vines up, you know?

And can we have enough mitigation on hand to be able to have the second go at it?

- [Evan] Larger farms have the resources to absorb losses and mitigation costs money.

Goodwin says he spent tens of thousands of dollars on resiliency efforts, such as adding vegetables to his crops, but he says another major flood could wipe him and his family out.

- So when we start looking at climate change now, with the climate change 50 years from now, I mean, the true question is, will this property still be able to be a, you know, a family-run farm?

We keep growing 'em in the summertime.

- [Evan] Goodwin says he now suffers from narcolepsy as one of the lingering impacts from his injury, which causes him to fall asleep spontaneously.

This prevents him from performing certain activities, such as driving a tractor.

But he says working on this farm is what really saved him.

- I think it's a dream to be able to do this, and to feed my community, but it's also a nightmare, you know, if we're not able to sustain this over a long period of time.

- [Evan] Gooodwin says climate change is now just part of his everyday life.

And he says he's hopeful his efforts will pay off, but for now, he says, he soldiers on, fulfilling a sense of duty, not just to his family, but to the country as well.

For "ncIMPACT", I'm Evan Howell.

- Joining me now is Rhyne Cureton, otherwise known as "Pork Rhyne".

Rhyne is an international swine educator, and has experience as a pork farmer.

Clearly, take that seriously, given your nickname.

Rhyne, talk to us a little bit about the kinds of challenges, you personally have faced as a farmer, trying to work in a world of climate change.

- Well, the thing about working and farming in Texas, where we would get 100-degree weather for two weeks straight, that's becoming more of the norm now.

And maybe with poultry and pork, it was easy because it was more grain dependent, but raising cattle, sheep, and goats, it was really hard for us.

Especially when, if the rains didn't come, that means the grass didn't grow.

If the grass didn't grow, that meant we needed to buy more hay.

If we need to buy more hay, that means that's an additional input.

And that additional input does have a cost burden onto the farm.

And there are a lot of farmers, especially this past couple of years, within the South, Lower South, who have experienced drought, and have had the hard economic impact from that.

- So we saw on the story, what happens when there is too much water, and yet we're also dealing with moments where there is just not enough.

What kind of solutions have you implemented to mitigate against the changing climate?

- So from a livestock perspective, one of the best ways is really finding the right livestock that will be resilient.

That's most of the reason why I raise heritage breeds, these are animals that can survive more extreme weather.

They don't need to be pampered a whole lot, like some of the more commercialized breeds are.

So that's one solution that I've been able to implement towards having some form of climate resilience, towards being able to mitigate some of the losses that we would've experienced otherwise.

- Say a little bit more about what this term, "resilient agriculture" means, and why it's important.

You hear it a lot, but I want you to unpack it for us, if you might.

- Yeah, so everyone got their own meaning about what resilient agriculture is.

For me personally, I believe that resilient agriculture kind of embodies flexibility.

As an agricultural educator, I tell people, "Work within your context," and there are a lot of formulaic designs for, "This is how you should farm."

And the reality is they're not flexible to the small-scale producers at all.

So I teach people really how to look at their context, or their limited resources, their land, and the animals and crops that they're growing, and seeing what works and what doesn't work.

And if it doesn't work, find something that will work, rather than sticking with something that's gonna be more of a detriment to your farm.

- So you just keep innovating until you hit it?

- Amen.

- Thank you, Rhyne, we'll be back for the panel.

It's clear, farmers across our state are facing many challenges.

Several North Carolina communities are partnering with NC State University to come up with solutions.

"ncIMPACT"'s David Hurst has more on how these partnerships are helping communities create more sustainable farming systems.

David, tell us something good.

- Anita, agriculture in North Carolina is a $92 billion industry, so, this is important work.

Surry County is one of those communities that works with NC state's Precision Sustainable Agricultural team.

The NC state team uses technology to provide real-time data to the farmers within their network, all in effort to create a more resilient farm system.

The world around us is constantly changing.

And Chris Reberg-Horton says that's especially true for farms.

- Agriculture, like the rest of society right now, is in an time of big change, between climate change, technological change.

And to be able to adapt to that situation, we have to be agile on our feet.

And to do that in agriculture, that means we really need a lot of data, we need real-time data.

- [David] Reberg-Horton is a professor of cropping systems at NC State University.

He's known for his work with Precision Sustainable Agriculture, a nationwide research network that focuses on technology to enhance sustainable agricultural practices.

- Agriculture has been through technological revolutions times in the past, right now we're undergoing another one.

And that's where we're gonna have big data, robotics, revolutionizing the way we do agriculture, and we have a rare opportunity to make it more environmentally friendly during this revolution.

And so I'm just excited to get up every day thinking about how we maintain that target.

- [David] Reberg-Horton and his team have a farmer's network that spans 20 states.

- They include barley, triticale, oats, something to that effect.

- Nathan Lowder is one of those farmers, and runs Fork L Enterprises in Stanly County.

He's partnering with the NC state team to measure how using cover crops could have both an economic and environmental benefit.

- If I can work towards building the health of the soil, and also reducing my inputs, which is gonna to make my cost of production lower, that's a win-win, and then environmental benefits on top of that.

- I think that we don't need that... - [David] The NC state team uses online and cloud-based platforms that allow Lowder, and other farmers, to receive real-time data related to what's happening in their fields.

Researchers say the low-cost technology is proving the performance, profitability, and sustainability in farm systems.

- We can create good quality equipment, IOT and smart devices, with low cost.

If we can make that, we can reduce or bridge the gap, between technology and farmers.

- [David] Reberg-Horton says with all the challenges farmers are facing, technology is giving them the data they need to come up with solutions.

- We couldn't have been doing this 10 years ago, even five years ago, the technology that we have available to us today, to understand what's happening on a farmer's field, is just unprecedented.

- And farmers in Stanly County partnered with farmers in nearby Anson and Montgomery Counties, an organization called the Upper PD Farm and Food Council runs that Tri-County initiative.

It gives local farmers a regional network to help create sustainable and economically resilient farm and food systems within the region.

- Love it, thank you, David, that was good.

Joining me now is Michelle Lovejoy.

Michelle is a North Carolina based manager for the Environmental Defense Fund.

Michelle, we heard in that story about a data-driven approach to addressing climate risks.

Talk to us, IOT, the internet of things.

What role will data and technology continue to play in helping farmers build climate resilience?

- Well, the farm technology these days is collecting more and more data.

So one of the challenges is how to make it useful for management decisions.

And I've actually done some work, with both Chris and Nathan, through the years, and they're headed in the right direction.

One of it is to find a way that the farmer can have access to the data in real time, through an inexpensive process, which is what they're looking at, at NC State.

And then they can monitor things, like maybe it's soil moisture, to see how much water is in the soil profile.

And then in real time, they can adjust their irrigation rates so that they're not watering too much, or too little, giving the crop exactly what it needs without eating into their profits.

- So what are some things that communities might do to help bolster their local farmers' efforts to mitigate the impacts of a changing climate?

- Well, one of the things that was referenced earlier is that North Carolina's gonna experience more and more flooding events.

And I've talked to a lot of farmers across the state, they can be, and they want to be, part of the climate change solution.

So at the farm level, what does that look like?

Well, take, for example, a farmer friend of mine after Hurricane Florence, they were able to get back out into their fields a month ahead of their neighbors.

And why is that?

Well, they had been doing soil health management practices for many years, like cover crops.

And one of the things cover crops does, is it maintains and builds up the structure of the soil.

So as the flood waters receded, they could get out in their field, whereas their neighbors, all of their soils had collapsed and turned into a slick mud that wouldn't hold up the weight of the tractor.

So they had to wait.

So communities can partner with farmers to help them to access existing programs that are out there, and allow the ground across the landscape to become spongier and be able to absorb more water, to help lessen impacts from localized flooding events.

- Very helpful.

What then, do you see, as local or state policy solutions that allow everybody to do the kinds of innovations you talked about your friend engaging in?

- Well this past year, the general assembly funded over $300 million in flood resilience projects and programs.

So over the coming years, we're all gonna be working with our neighbors at the local watershed level, to figure out what those local solutions are to flood mitigation.

And so if you work with the farmers, and help improve their soil-health management systems, you improve their farm profits, because they have to use less inputs over time.

And then you can also partner with a farmer to look across the landscape to see where, on their farm, that isn't in production, that they could install natural infrastructure practices.

Maybe it's a wetland, maybe it's reforestation, or even stream buffers.

And these types of practices can help hold back flood waters as well, so it's a win-win for both.

The farmer becomes more profitable, and the community has less impacts to future localized flooding events.

- Win-win indeed, thank you for sharing, it's fascinating.

We'll be back in the panel.

Fewer young people are going into farming these days, and it has some concern about the future of agriculture.

We took a look at one low community college that is attracting and training the next generation of farmers.

As "ncIMPACT"'s Melody Hunter-Pillion found out, these students are being trained with sustainability in mind.

Melody, tell us more.

- Anita, Central Carolina Community College was the first community college in the nation to offer a two-year degree in sustainable agriculture.

They've been teaching future farmers for more than 20 years.

Since the program's inception, they've given farmers the skills to deal with a changing climate.

- And this is where they're all kept.

- [Melody] Several years ago, Jennifer Sanford moved to North Carolina from Minnesota, looking for a career change.

- I thought, you know, I'd really love to do something that I wake up in the morning, and I'm excited about doing.

And this is like home base.

- [Melody] For her, that turned out to be farming.

She now runs a small family-run sustainable farm in Johnston County called Chickadee Farms.

- My personality type is I'm always loving to learn new things.

And that's one of the reasons farming appeals to me, because it's always different, there's always a different challenge, every season's different.

- [Melody] Her interest in farming grew when she took classes through the Sustainable Agricultural Program at Central Carolina Community College.

The program began in 1999, and has a curriculum that teaches farmers sustainable practices, so they can run their own direct-to-consumer farms.

- This is an entrepreneurial focus program.

You know, somebody's gonna come out of this program and start their own farm, they're starting a small business.

- [Melody] Most of the training takes place on the campus's certified organic farm.

It's proven to be a big recruiting piece for prospective students.

- We can meet in my office, and then we walk out here, and we walk out here and you just see the light go on.

And the students are like, "Okay, you know, this is where I wanna come, because I can see what's going on here."

- When I went to Central Carolina, I worked- - [Melody] For Jennifer Sanford, she uses a lot of what she learned on the on-campus farm, including regenerative and organic practices, that improve her soil and plant health.

And she says the program not only gave her the knowledge to run a farm, but also the ability to adapt to challenges spurred on by variable weather, drought, and flooding.

- It was like a great experience, and it really helped me feel confident, and you know, able to go into farming, and feel like I knew what I was doing.

- The community college works closely with local farmers, and students often take field trips to those farms to learn more about sustainable farming practices.

The college also partners with North Carolina A&T State University, offering North Carolina students a two plus two program, where they go to the community college for two years, and then get their agriculture education degree for the final two years at North Carolina A&T State University.

- Melody, thank you for sharing, what a great program.

- It is.

- Well, let's bring our experts, Michelle and "Pork Rhyne" back.

And joining us for our "ncIMPACT" Round Table is Jared Woollacott, Jared is a Senior Environmental Economist with RTI International.

Jared, I'd like to start with you, if I'm might.

Let's talk money, 'cause everybody needs to talk money.

What is the economic impact of the changing climate on farms in North Carolina?

- Well, thank you very much, Anita.

It's a pleasure to be here.

I wanna start with scale on that question.

I think one thing that is important, that gets people's attention, is how much revenue is generated from agriculture in North Carolina.

There's about $10 billion in quantity cash receipts from agriculture in North Carolina.

And if you look at the asset base, that is the value of the farmland and structures throughout North Carolina, that's another $40 billion.

These are big, big sums of money.

There's about 25,000 jobs directly employed in agriculture in North Carolina, but that's just the sector itself.

And so much depends on agriculture throughout the North Carolina economy.

When you take into account the agribusiness as a whole, the food service sectors that depend on North Carolina, and frankly our food security, our ability to meet society's needs throughout North Carolina as a whole, you're looking at nearly 15% of our state GDP, or $90 billion.

So these are large sums, and that that's just the start of understanding what value is at risk from climate change threats.

- Well, if your intent was to make sure you caught our attention with a big number, $90 billion certainly did that for us, so thank you.

So you've heard Michelle and "Pork Rhyne" talk about these new inputs that are required for sustainable agriculture.

If I'm a farmer, I'm thinking, "Will it be profitable If I have to invest in all these new inputs?"

What's your answer to me, Jared?

- Some are, there are some profitable options out there for resilience, but not all of them are.

Some of them require investment, and even those that are profitable don't happen overnight.

We know that farmers work on very thin margins.

They can't turn on a dime to implement new practices.

They need classic forms of support, like extension services, technical assistance, to help them learn new methods of doing their daily work.

And that requires new investment from land grant institutions and others that can help them come up to speed on these practices.

- So Michelle, let's stick on this topic of new investment.

You said in your interview that the general assembly had appropriated funds to support farmers in their mitigation efforts.

How do community leaders partner with local farmers who might be hesitant to take advantage of those resources, in order to implement sustainable agricultural practices?

- Well, my advice to any community leader is to pull people together and have a discussion.

I've seen many of these discussions happen through the years that helps to bridge the understanding between the community, what the community understands about agriculture, and what the farmer actually needs.

Through my conversations with farmers, it usually comes down to two things: time and money, just like many things in life.

So if we can tap into existing programs that are available to the farmer, make sure they have access to technical assistance, maybe through their soil and water conservation districts.

And then give the farmer time, to start out with 5, 10 acres to test out the practice, and build it across their farm production system over time.

And they will start to see the benefits of installing those practices.

- So, Rhyne, how do you talk to people about this?

- Me?

Oh.

I talk to people about this, really just allowing them... To first say, "I know where you are, it's okay, there is hope for you, you are loved."

That's generally how I start the conversation off, because there's a lot of fear and anxiety.

When, for some of these people, they're fifth, sixth, seven generation farmers, and their identity is found in their property, the land.

So when the land is not functioning the way that they're used to, it's almost as if their identity is being crushed.

And so I just really give them a lot of grace and say, "It's gonna be okay."

But moving forward, going back to Jared's point about looking at agriculture from an economic standpoint, whether I'm speaking across the country, or go overseas to East Africa, I'm always telling my farmers that farming is a business.

It's always a business.

And so it's really important that we look at things and practices from an economic value.

Everyone has different context, but the biggest thing for me is finding things that work for the farmer.

And part of that is working with extension, also working with NRCS, and a lot of the other government agencies.

Michelle mentioned the cover cropping.

One thing I will add to that is that NCRS does provide cover cropping incentives, where they will pay you to cover crop.

Did you know that?

That's super cool.

So that's one way that our United States government is trying to implement climate resilience.

- Michelle , let's stay on this track for a second.

What are some other local climate mitigation solutions that you've seen here in North Carolina that are showing real promise?

- Well, one example is the town of Goldsboro.

During localized storm events, some of the communities can't get access to the hospital, because the roads flood out.

So we worked with a team of researchers at NC State to model these types of practices on farmland upstream, to see what the impacts were.

So by using cover crops, to reforestation, to wetlands, the model told us that, yes, in fact, less roads would over top, and more communities could access the hospital.

So it's this dual approach of working with the farmer at the field level, so they increase their profitability, gaining the trust of the farmer to see where to put these other natural infrastructure practices.

And then the community has less impacts from floods.

- I love this, you all are on point on each other's points.

It's perfect, it's perfect.

So Jared, you started us off thinking, not just about the economic benefits, but really societal benefits.

And if you were to make the argument to a farmer about the investment in some sort of input, which benefits would you point to?

- You know, there are quite quite a few benefits that I would highlight.

I think that the trouble is in distinguishing what benefits are directly accruing to the farmer, and which benefits are accruing to society?

And it's those latter benefits that I'm most concerned about, because the market structures are lacking for them.

Now there's been a groundswell of investment, trying to pour public and private funding into supporting farmers, and making these societally beneficial investments to improve resilience, to reduce emissions, but they're not enough.

And we know that the farmers... we can only count on our farmers to do so much before the economics do not pencil out for them.

And that's where public support needs to step in, provide the right policy incentives, and elicit the continued investment that's needed to make this transition to a cleaner economy.

- Thank you so much.

Rhyne, Michelle, Jared, thank you for all the ways that you are thinking about these issues, and helping those farmers.

Rhyne talked about feeling frustrated and concerned, think about how they do their work in this new context.

Of course, we never end without thanking you, our amazing audience, for watching and engaging.

Tell us what your community is doing, or how we can help you, email us at ncimpact@unc.edu, or message us on Twitter or Facebook.

And be sure to join us every Friday night at 7:30, on PBS North Carolina, for new episodes of "ncIMPACT".

Coming up on "ncIMPACT", many farmers are facing issues threatening their mental health, but a unique program is now helping them help each other.

[upbeat music] ♪ - [Male Narrator] "NC Impact" is a PBS North Carolina production, in association with the University of North Carolina School of Government.

Funding for "ncIMPACT" is made possible by.... - [Female Narrator] Changing the course of people's lives.

That's the impact UNC Health and the UNC School of Medicine work to deliver every day.

Our 40,000 team members across the state of North Carolina are committed to caring for you, our patients and communities, as well as educating the next generation of healthcare professionals.

Individually, we can do a little, but collectively, we can do a lot to create impact.