North Carolina’s tech industry gets a lot of visibility, and understandably so. According to NC TECH’s 2023 report, the industry “supports $72 billion in wages across the NC economy” and employs 291,000 people.But the agriculture sector far surpasses tech in North Carolina. Just last month, Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler announced the industry reached $103.2 billion in economic impact this year –…

Service Employees International Union (SEIU), renowned for its aggressive, no-holds-barred tactics, launched a well-funded organizing push this past year as part of a new affiliate called the “Union of Southern Service Workers.” Its target? North Carolina, including North Carolina farm workers. The organization can only go so far under existing laws and rules, but anything is…

The 2023 N.C. Farm Act, which the General Assembly is currently considering, contains a provision that would appropriately reform confusing and punishing N.C. Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ) regulations for farmers. All the bill’s language would do is require North Carolina’s wetlands protections to match the federal government and not go any further.  Farmers struggle…

The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision in National Pork Producers v. Ross, upheld a California law that will have profound implications for North Carolina farmers. Ignoring the real experts – the farmers – activists led a referendum effort to impose restrictions on animal treatment that rejects centuries of tradition. The law requires that pork sold…

Unfortunately, our prediction that last December’s Poultry hit piece by McClatchy’s Charlotte and Raleigh papers wasn’t the end, but just the beginning was true. Last Friday, an obscure law school in Vermont, which is training environmental justice lawyers, along with the NC Riverkeepers, Friends of the Earth, and two environmental justice advocates from Robeson County,…

The big-city papers were celebrating themselves this week because they got a prize for their efforts to malign North Carolina’s poultry producers. This wasn’t a prize that you’ve heard of, like the Medal of Honor or the Stanley Cup.No, they got the 2023 McElheny Award, which is associated with the journalism program at the elite Massachusetts…