Politics

Commissioners emphasize urgency of farm aid

By Bill Moss, Published: January 14, 2025

Causing nearly $170 million worth of agriculture damage, Hurricane Helene left many farms teetering on the edge of extinction, Henderson County commissioners were told last week.

Farmers’ 2025 season “started about two months ago,” Terry Kelley, director of the Henderson County Cooperative Extension Service, told board members last week. “They’re supposed to be preparing land, laying plastic, planting trees, pruning. They’ve got loans that are due, they’ve got things they have to buy for this upcoming season. They’ve got to get loans because most of you know farmers operate on a loan basis from year to year and they can’t do any of that until they know where they’re gonna be after this hurricane.”

The dire situation greatly heightened a sense of urgency among commissioners to demand a rescue by both state and federal elected leaders.

“It’s just astounding,” Bill Lapsley, chair of the county commission, said after Kelley concluded his damage assessment report. “Most people in our community aren’t aware of this impact. One of my biggest concerns is timing. We can’t be sitting here in March or April discussing how we’re going to get this money. If we don’t get federal and state money in our hands here short term — I’m thinking of a few weeks — it may be too late. Some of these farms are just not going to survive and I think that would be devastating to our whole economy and our community. So we gotta do whatever we can to encourage state support and get it ASAP.”

“I know Jennifer Balkcom is working very hard,” Commissioner Rebecca McCall. “She is all over this.

Bigger than Katrina

Lapsley’s comments came after Kelley presented details of his report of Helene’s catastrophic wrecking of farmland, crops, roads, barns and equipment.

“Everybody talks about Katrina and what a big hurricane Katrina was, how much damage it did and how much it cost,” he said, as he showed a slide comparing the two largest hurricanes of the past 25 years. Katrina was a Category 3 hurricane with 125 mph winds, a 400-mile diameter and a wind field of 230 miles. Helene, a Category 4 storm, packed 140 mph winds and was 822 miles wide with a wind field of 370 miles.

Kelley described the unprecedented damage to the agriculture industry:

• Crop loss, $38.5 million: The county lost 80,000 trees, including almost 55,000 apple trees. Nurseries “lost an enormous number of plants.” In one-gallon woody plants, nearly a half million containers were drowned or washed away. Nursery losses totaled $12 million.
• Stored products (mostly apples and hay), $5.98 million: “We lost a lot of hay in round bales and square bales, and we lost over 300,000 bushels of apples that were in storage because there was no power and the quality of those apples deteriorated rapidly so they were not being able to be sold.”
• Livestock: $15,000. Honeybees, $42,262.
• Infrastructure, including farm fields, $61.8 million. “I’m sure some of you have seen pictures or even examples where fields are washed out. I saw fields in Mills River where you could have driven two buses right down the middle of the gully, and those fields have to be repaired to go back into production.” More than 141 miles of gravel roads plus culverts and bridges have to be fixed.
• Agritourism, $10.5 million: “Most of our agritourism industry covers about a 12-week span. All of our folks that are in agritourism make pretty much 100 percent of their income in that 12-week period of time so this storm happened right in the middle of that. October is the biggest month for agritourism in Henderson County and most of our agritourism venues were shut down anywhere from two to five weeks, and the losses accounted for over $10 million.”
• Future income, $6.6 million: “Go back to that orchard I visited on Tuesday, which was about 20 acres of eight-year-old trellised apple trees that were in full production. I was there two years ago, enormous crop — walls of apples. I went out there the other day and there’s nothing: no more trees, no more trellis, there’s nothing. He’s going to replant those trees. He’s ordered the trees already, but he’ll put in whips or feather trees that are going to require five to six years to get back into production, probably closer to seven to get back into full production. … The nursery number would probably be two or three times” the apple loss if future income.

Kelley estimated that his survey, which projected $135 million worth of damage, captured around 80 percent of the total. Based on that, the overall loss would be as high as $169 million.

“I’m figuring about 25 percent is going to be covered through either insurance or federal programs,” he said, leaving an uncovered loss of $127 million. “Flood insurance is not something that most of our growers have. They do have insurance for freezes and hail and a lot of other things but flood is not one of them. … We’re still evaluating this. They’re estimates, we know that. I saw some equipment estimates that were turned in that I know were way lower than what it’s going to cost them to replace that equipment.”

When Lapsley and McCall emphasized the urgency of quick relief, County Manager John Mitchell said he had been in contact with state Sen. Tim Moffitt and Rep. Balkcom.

“They both assured me this is the first item on their agenda,” he said. “It has been the will of this board to advocate loudly for these funds and we will continue to do that.”