Blooming agribusiness at work.

• Author: Holloway, Constance
• Position: Industry Overview - Advertisement

With all the talk about North Carolina's emergence as a financial center, its allure to tourists and its thriving technology sector, it seems as if the state has forgotten about one of its oldest commercial pursuits: agribusiness. In 2000, the most recent year for which statistics are available, agribusiness -- farming, processing and retail and wholesale distribution of agricultural, natural-fiber and forest products -- generated nearly $63 billion, 20% of the state economy, says Michael Walden, an economist at N.C. State University. That year, the industry employed about 771,000, 20% of the N.C. work force.

The state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services is working on several projects designed to sustain growth and foster diversity in the agribusiness sector. Among them is Appalachian Food Ventures, a joint effort between the department and AdvantageWest North Carolina, the regional economic-development partnership for western North Carolina. Expected to open in September, Appalachian Food Ventures will give clients in Western North Carolina access to a Food and Drug Administration-approved food-processing plant. Services will include sales and marketing support, product development, equipment training, support in developing business plans and small-business financing.

"We have identified more than 40 small businesses that wish to use the facility in the first year. These include farmers, caterers and food entrepreneurs," says Smithson Mills, agribusiness developer for the Agriculture Department. How does it work? Say an apple grower, who has traditionally sold his apples to large-scale juice processors, is no longer able to get a decent price. Appalachian Food Ventures would "give that grower the opportunity to juice his own apples and sell the juice as a local product fresh from the Blue Ridge Mountains." How much of a difference can it make? "Instead of getting, say, $4.50 per bushel for apples, the farmer can process that same bushel into about three gallons of apple juice that he can retail at his roadside stand for $4 or $5 per gallon." There is a small fee for using the plant. The project has received $425,000 in grants from Golden LEAF, a nonprofit that dispenses funds from the state's share of the national tobacco settlement, and the Z. Smith Reynolds and Progress Energy foundations.

The Agriculture Department also is marketing the state's agribusiness sector through such initiatives as N.C. Fresh Link, a program that...