State lawmakers advance food aid bill, back agriculture research

On May 13, lawmakers received an update on projects bringing cutting-edge innovation to agriculture and advanced a bill allocating $6 million to address local agriculture and food insecurity during the House Agriculture and Environment Committee meeting.

Theresa Lambert, with the Research Station Division of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services (NCDA&CS), presented an update to the committee on projects under the Research Station Division.

North Carolina has 18 research stations, six of which are under the umbrella of North Carolina State University, with the remaining 12 being owned and operated by NCDA&CS. Generating $111.1 billion annually, agriculture is the state’s No. 1 industry. North Carolina is the leading producer of flue-cured tobacco and poultry, according to Lambert. 

The research division has developed a system for the beef industry to calculate feed efficiency, finally catching up with the pork and poultry industries, according to Lambert. RFID tags are scanned at the feed bunk, which calculates how much feed the animal consumes 24 hours a day. Feed efficiency measures how many pounds of feed it takes to produce one pound of beef. 

Calculating water efficiency in animals is difficult, stated Lambert.The water system has flow meters that measure how much water the animal consumes, which helps identify which animals are not only feed-efficient but also feed-inefficient.

The water farming project has also been a research division project, focusing on flood mitigation strategies to reduce the effects of devastating floods, whether or not they are hurricane-related, according to Lambert. Every drop of water entering the pond in the water-farming project is accounted for. Water can be captured during rainfall to prevent it from flowing downstream and causing flooding. Water can be utilized for the irrigation of croplands during a drought. This project is funded and conducted by NC State University, with collaborators from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), who hope to find practices for farmers, homeowners, and developers to identify mitigation strategies for flood events. 

This project has just been completed and will be in its first year of operation, according to Lambert. The water is used through smart irrigation — smart linear systems, which are fully controlled via Wi-Fi. The amount of water for a commodity and a research project can be controlled by the station’s superintendent simply by entering that information on a cell phone. 

A research station in Clinton, the facility is a research storage facility, allowing for research projects on post-harvest storage to ensure a quality product that can be exported outside the United States. The next great variety is probably sitting in that building, according to Lambert.

Precision agriculture planting is conducted at all research stations, including GPS-autosteer on tractors for planting, spraying, etc., based on a previously written prescription, explained Lambert. This is a great way to save resources because only what is needed is applied in that particular spot, rather than wasting resources where they are not needed. It also allows changing row spacing rather than the usual manual, labor-intensive way. New equipment for research stations has been purchased, providing the most advanced equipment the research division has ever had. Purchasing power has also increased, as contracts, such as those with John Deere, often offer free units when multiple units are purchased. 

The Fraser Fir industry does have its challenges, including processing seed out of state and shipping seedlings back to North Carolina that may be infected with diseases, explained Lambert. This challenge was presented to Ag Commissioner Steve Troxler by the research division to keep the entire process in-state, and Troxler granted permission for grant writing to bring that to fruition. The division will utilize a state-of-the-art Fraser Fir seed processing center at Upper Mountain Research Station. There is a plethora of existing research for corn and soybean growers on seed processing, but none for Fraser Firs. This research station is writing the book on Fraser Fir seed processing from scratch, according to Lambert. 

“This work has never been done before,” said Lambert. “There is not one single Fraser Fir seed on the planet that is certified except the seed at the Upper Mountain Research Station. So we are extremely proud of that.”

HB 1154

State Rep. Karl Gillespie, R-Macon, presented HB 1154 to the House Agriculture and Environment Committee, which quickly voted the bill through to appropriations. 

“This is a very straightforward bill; it supports both agriculture, North Carolina farmers, and North Carolina families,” said Gillespie. “It’s a $6 million appropriation, non-recurring, which strengthens local agriculture while addressing food insecurity; this legislation keeps tax dollars circulating within the North Carolina agriculture economy.” 

The bill has two primary components: 

1) The farm share program expansion of $4 million in non-recurring funds to the FarmShare Food Hub program.

2) $2 million appropriation for the Double Up Food Bucks Program

Accountability for the spending of allocated dollars is through annual reporting back to the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Agriculture and Natural and Economic Resources. Gillespie said he knew of no opposition to the bill. With no debate or discussion from the committee, the bill was voted through to appropriations. 

“State lawmakers advance food aid bill, back agriculture research” was originally published on www.carolinajournal.com.