Recently, Golden LEAF President, Chief Executive Officer Scott T. Hamilton sat down with Laura Kilian, NC Ag Leads staff and Associate State Legislative Director at NC Farm Bureau via Zoom and filmed an episode of Critical Conversations. In this series, Scott talks with professionals about economic development issues affecting the state.
NC Ag Leads is a strategic planning initiative for the North Carolina agriculture industry that will position the state’s number one economic driver for continued success. In January 2023, the Golden LEAF Foundation Board of Directors met at the Lenoir County Cooperative Extension in Kinston for the annual strategic planning retreat to discuss ways to broaden our impact in rural and economically distressed areas. Golden LEAF Chairman at the time, Don Flow, raised the idea of developing a strategic plan for agriculture in North Carolina. Asking the question, what can Golden LEAF do to help best prepare North Carolina to continue as a leader in agriculture into the future? Golden LEAF began the conversation with members of Commissioner Troxler’s team, the Farm Bureau, and the Chamber later in the spring, and a few weeks later NC Ag Leads was born.
Golden LEAF is proud to be a key funder in the NC Ag Leads Initiative, which was officially announced November 9th of 2023. Kilian, along with Ray Starling, General Counsel of the NC Chamber and President of the NC Chamber Legal Institute, accepted the roles and responsibilities to drive the NC Ag Leads process, along with support from Sarah Grace Stone and members of the NC Chamber team.
NC Ag Leads is a phased approach to making a tangible difference in the ag economy. Kilian shared that the NC Ag Leads team has traveled across the state to facilitate 23 focus groups, reaching 68 counties and over 340 members of North Carolina’s agriculture industry to date. NC Ag Leads hosted Imagine Ag Day with thought leaders to think outside the box. The team also held an “Agricultural Industry Wargame” designed to further explore the challenges uncovered during Phase 1 of the project. Additionally, the team met one-on-one or in groups with legislators, congressmen, farmers, commodity leaders, community college presidents, and other higher education institutions. The focus has been on farmers and agribusiness growth on micro and macro levels.
The Golden LEAF Board recognized the importance of a Steering Committee that includes agriculture leaders in North Carolina who would be dedicated to putting in the work. The NC Ag Leads consists of Golden LEAF President, Chief Executive Officer Scott T. Hamilton, along with Golden LEAF Board Members Lawrence Davenport, Laurence Lilley, and Don Flow, as well as Commissioner Troxler, Shawn Harding, and Gary Salamido. Kilian said the Steering Committee challenged the NC Ag Leads team to come up with a to-do list of aspirational and attainable results from the strategic planning process. The Steering Committee meets with NC Ag Leads on a regular basis and hears weekly updates.
Kilian said the NC Ag Leads team distilled Phase 1 into five recurring themes. These themes included the need for a talent pipeline, the competition for land in a fast-growing state, the access of farmers to their target markets, generational concerns with an aging farming population and the next generation of consumers, and farm support systems that do not always support farming.
Phase 2 began over the summer, Kilian said. She said there are six focus groups that are working on issues that were identified in Phase 1. The working groups are collectively titled HARVEST:
H – Harmonize land and resource use in a growing state, which focuses on addressing land and resource use pressure within the state of North Carolina. Farmland competition and water storage and diversion fit here, along with a coordinated and renewed discussion regarding continued strategic management of our animal agriculture footprint.
A – Align technology supply and demand, which focuses on achieving alignment between the burgeoning agri- and animal-tech industries within North Carolina and the state’s diverse and adaptive farming community.
R – Reinforce farmer support systems, which focuses on equipping farmers and agribusinesses with tools sufficient to guard against disruption, inclusive of shocks and challenges that may arise on legal and policy fronts.
V – Value a business mindset across the industry, particularly on the farm, which focuses on ensuring the entire sector embraces an “ag as a business” mindset that enhances our growers’ business planning, transition planning, and credit management expertise.
E – Empower and equip the agriculture workforce, which focuses on pursuing alignment among agricultural education efforts so that we have the best trained and most plentiful labor supply our system can produce. Pursue a “Talent Pipeline Management” strategy that results in aligning talent demand with supply.
S – Streamline market access efforts, which focuses on removing barriers to key markets, increasing market access (in some instances, establishing greater aggregation), capturing as much of the food dollar as possible on the farm (value added efforts), and exploring vulnerabilities that could cause mass economic casualties if disruption were to happen quickly (e.g., addressing one buyer issues and vertical ag dependence).
T – Teamwork and leadership are the key to moving from key issues to key outcomes, which focuses on the engagement and support from North Carolina’s agriculture community, which has been instrumental in the success of NC Ag Leads’ progress so far.
Next steps, according to Kilian, is that the six working group leaders will work to achieve actionable steps for issues identified to move North Carolina’s agriculture economy forward.
To learn more about NC Ag Leads, visit ncagricultureleads.com.