By Nell Perry Bovender
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Fifteen years ago, I gave up city life to move to rural Rutherford County. The man I married had made the same decision 20 years earlier. We weren’t simply looking for a slower pace and a sense of place, although those are huge benefits. We were choosing a life rarely chosen these days.
Tim is a farmer.
The rarity of his decision is reflected in the steady decline in the number of farms in North Carolina over the last 20 years—from 72,786 farms on 10.3 million acres in 1982 to 53,930 farms on 9.1 million acres in 2002. That’s 26 percent fewer farms in just 20 years.
It’s hard work, and it doesn’t pay well. The price of a pound of meat on the hoof, to be honest, bears little resemblance to the sticker price at the grocery store. But farming is a labor of love.
For Tim’s labor over these last 35 years, we were named “State Conservation Farm Family of the Year” for 2006 by the N.C. Division of Soil and Water Conservation. The award title is an acknowledgement that farming is more than an occupation: It’s a lifestyle affecting an entire family.
The award recognizes Tim’s work to protect the water sources that run through this property. He installed 45,000 feet of fencing—more than eight miles—to keep our 100-plus beef cattle out of the streams. The streams serve as the headwaters of Cathey’s Creek, part of the Second Broad River watershed. To provide water for the cows, he had two wells dug and installed 12 watering tanks and almost two miles of pipe. Government programs paid for enough of the effort to make it affordable.
He has also corrected damage done by farming practices generations ago. Water runoff from cotton fields had eroded a huge gully down the hill almost to one creek, and “high-grading” timber—the practice of cutting the best trees within a grove—had left forests of low-grade timber. Tim gradually filled the gully, which is now seeded back into permanent vegetation. And he follows a forestry plan that he and the U.S. Forest Service came up with to clear-cut and replant sections of timber in both pine and hardwood.
The award also recognizes our decision six years ago to place 300 acres under a conservation easement, which means that this acreage will remain open space for agricultural purposes forever. Foothills Land Conservancy holds the easement, pledging to monitor in perpetuity what goes on here. Contrary to what most people think about conservation easements, we still own the land and are free to sell it.
Development is encroaching on farmland all over this state; the loss of 1.2 million acres over the last 20 years shows that. Farmers are hard pressed to afford the increase in taxes and resist the pressure to sell. Our decision, we hope, will make it easier for our children to own this place.
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