She wants voters to dig her resume as well as her roots.

• Author: Gray, Tim

The Holsteins have been gone since the early '80s from the Scott family farm in eastern Alamance County. In the big, white barn's milking parlor, where black-and-white cows used to low at dawn, lie three rusted farm implements, a kid's bike, an upended sofa, a pile of cast-off campaign signs for District Attorney Rob Johnson, a discarded washer and a stove. The only hints of ongoing farming are a half-dozen round bales of freshly cut hay, cached in the middle of the barn.

They will feed Meg Scott Phipps' 15 head of Angus and Belted Galloway beef cattle. Phipps is running for state agriculture commissioner. She and her husband, Robert, are hobby farmers. They've begun to grow Japanese maple seedlings, which they hope to sell to city and county governments. Neither cows nor nursery pays the bills. Meg, a lawyer, was a judge in the N.C. Office of Administrative Hearings until she quit to campaign. Robert buys and manages commercial real estate.

Phipps, 44, can't even be called a part-time farmer -- her husband takes care of the cattle; a business partner of his, the trees. But she may be better suited for the ag commissioner job than anybody with muddy boots and calloused hands. Daughter and granddaughter of former governors -- grandfather Kerr Scott was also agriculture commissioner and U.S. senator -- she is certified as a mediator and, as a lawyer, specialized in representing farmers in bankruptcy. (One of the planks of her platform is an 18-month moratorium on farm foreclosures.) She's running at a time when Tar Heel farmers need a diplomat, someone who can work their adversaries, especially environmentalists and urbanites. Farming used to be the sleeping rattlesnake of Tar Heel politics: Poke it at your peril. Today, many wonder why the family farm deserves special treatment.

As their political power is fading, farmers are ailing. In the wake of Hurricanes Fran, Dennis and Floyd, many are hurting financially. Tobacco harvests are shriveling as cigarette companies buy more leaf abroad. Hog farming faces an uncertain future due to concerns about waste. Prices for commodities have been weak for years. About the best thing you can say for North Carolina agriculture is that it's as diverse as it ever has been. Farmers forced out of tobacco are scrambling to find new things to grow, from nursery plants for suburbanites to grapes for wine.

Maybe the question isn't whether Phipps can handle the job of agriculture commissioner but why she, or...