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By Tamar Reno

 

Three fires are burning in Polk County. Collectively, they’ve burned nearly 6,500 acres. Officials refer to them as the Black Cove Complex. 

They’re complex, alright. 

Two fires are in the Green River Gorge, which was already severely damaged by Helene. Fueled by dry wind and Helene’s debris, the steep terrain adds another layer of complexity to containing these fires. In some places, you literally can’t get there from here.

One fire did something fires aren’t supposed to do: It jumped the Green River to knock on back doors in Henderson County as well.

I’m not here to talk about fires.

In Polk County, where we stay rural by God and on purpose, we are surrounded by small family farms. Even at Bear Creek Farm, where our main crop is organic horse manure, we have blueberries, pears, and one peach tree that’s seen better days.

In the spring, our mouths water, waiting for local strawberries. Just as the strawberries run out, peaches show up. Georgia claims to have the best peaches. Georgia is wrong.

Eating local is easy here—fruits and vegetables, meat and eggs.

And honey. My husband John, a honey connoisseur, once met up for a clandestine deal in the parking lot of the Dollar General to buy two jars of local honey from the beekeeper himself. 

After the last sweet bite of a Carolina peach, apples come into season. An early variety is the Tigress, best described as Granny Smith’s sweeter sister. We buy apples from Polk County’s TK Family Farm. 

Small farms have thrived here for generations, even though it’s hard.  Farmers get up early and are still going after dark. It’s been especially hard since Helene.

Helene caused roughly $4.9 billion in damages to Western North Carolina agriculture, including loss of crops, livestock, and topsoil, and damage or complete ruin of infrastructure. 

In some cases, it was enough to make farmers give up. Some farms aren’t coming back. 

Yet some of our farmers are hanging on, at least for now. With a little help and even more backbreaking work, they’re mending fences and fertilizing soil, planting crops, and watching their peach trees bloom. And hoping. And praying. Farming is an act of hopefulness.

It’s getting harder. Our forests aren’t the only thing going up in smoke. 

The Farm Service Agency in Henderson County, the location closest to Polk County, is closing, along with dozens of USDA locations. FSA offices provide assistance to small farmers like our neighbors.

The Local Food Purchase Assistance program, which provided funds to food banks to purchase food directly from local farms, has been canceled, as has a similar program that supplied local food to schools. TK Family Farm is just one of Polk’s farms selling to schools.

Funding for another USDA program, the Rural Energy for America Program, was frozen. TK Family Farm was already invested in this program and had been promised reimbursement. Only now, the funds are frozen.

So, what happens when small farms can’t make it?  You end up buying vegetables in shrink wrap while farmers end up working inside Dollar Generals instead of hawking honey in the parking lot where they belong.

Shame on us if we let that happen.