Josh Clifton, a freshman in general agriculture and agriculture business, reaches for his ringing cell phone as it plays country singer Jason Aldean’s “Amarillo Sky” — a tribute to the struggles a farmer faces.
“That hail storm back in ’83/ Sure did take a toll on his family/ But he stayed strong and carried on/ Just like his dad and granddad did before him.”
“If you listen to the first part of the music video, when they’re talking about leaving the farm and coming back, it’s all true. That whole song is true. Farming isn’t just something you do. It’s your whole life,” Clifton said. “You just keep going no matter what because it’s all you know and love.”
The song’s lyrics reflect a way of life that is beginning to die out in North Carolina, as well as many other parts of the southeastern area of the United States, Clifton said.
Clifton, Jerred Nix, a sophomore in agriculture business management and ornamentals and landscape technology and Jonathan Cowin, a junior in agriculture extension, along with other aspiring farmers, came to N.C. State to build a bridge between the life they’ve always known and the life they hope to create for the next generation.
Clifton, along with Nix and Cowin, said he knows a little about triumphs and hardships in the field. All three come from North Carolina families who having been farming for at least five generations. All three said they are ready to take that tradition into their own hands.
“It’s in the deed that you can’t sell the farmland off to anyone outside of the family. But even if it wasn’t for that, I’d still want to farm,” Clifton said.
His family owns 20 acres of burly tobacco — “baccer” as it’s known to those who grow it — and fifty acres of corn. In addition, he has more than 100 registered Angus cows, a team of mules and two donkeys, all located on their farm in the mountains of Leicester, North Carolina.
Cowin, on the other hand, said he will stay with his award-winning peanuts.
“I like to stick with the crops — they don’t kick or bite,” he said, laughing.
With his father, he grows 380 acres of cotton, 50 acres of tobacco and 130 acres of peanuts in Bear Grass, a town about thirty minutes outside of Greenville. But these aren’t just any peanuts.
“Our farm has been the Peanut Champions of Martin County for eighteen years running, since 1988. We always have the highest yield in the state,” Cowin said. “And in 2004, we were named State Peanut Champions.”
Nix brought to Raleigh his experience of cultivating 75 acres of apples in Hendersonville, North Carolina, along with squash, pumpkins, gourds and peaches. His family also owns four horses and more than 30 acres of pasture.
“He gets up before the dawn/ Packs a lunch and a thermos full of coffee/ It’s another day in the dusty haze.”
There are no cubicles or conference meetings on the farm, and “business casual” holds no meaning. However, the unpredictable workday on the farm mirrors many of the careers other students will enter after graduation.
“There is no typical day — one day the crop is perfect, the next day everything goes wrong,” Nix said. “It’s hard. Most people don’t even know where the food comes. It doesn’t just show up on the shelf.”
Clifton agreed and said he acknowledges the unpredictability of life on the farm.
“Farming isn’t easy, it’s not a 9-to-5 job. It’s outside and everything depends on Mother Nature. There’s hard years you’ll never forget, and there’s years that are easy. It changes all the time,” he said.
It’s hard labor and a commitment to family tradition that defines the culture of farming, according to Cowin. Cowin — whose peanut farm produces about 6,000 pounds of peanuts per acre, almost doubling the state average — credits the deep sense of tradition his family values as the tool to success.
“Farming isn’t just a job, it’s a lifestyle. I have been raised that nothing comes before your family and that is how I think now,” he said. “You can’t really understand unless you’re there.”
“Diesel’s worth the price of gold/ And it’s the cheapest grain he’s ever sold/ But he’s still holding on.”
Like many students, agriculture majors who want to farm after college are faced with an uncertain job market. Although they may already have the land and the experience, the industry has faced many changes over the recent years.
John Rayfield, assistant professor in agricultural and extension education, has watched as farming has evolved into a global industry.
“In this state, as well as other states in the southeast, we’re starting to witness what the sociology people refer to as urban sprawl,” he said. “In counties such as Johnston County, farmers can’t afford not to sell the land off to developers. The increase in property value is just amazing.”
In Nix’s native town of Hendersonville, apple orchards have dwindled by half, leaving less than 5,000 acres. Grocery stores across the state stock their shelves with potatoes and lettuce shipped across the world, according to him. As the family farm’s future looks darker and darker, Cowin said, the farmers of the future have to deal with slipping demand and higher equipment prices.
“Our cotton is 41 cents a pound, but the machine I have to buy to pick it costs $300,000,” Cowin said, shaking his head.
Those worries were one of the big reasons Cowin, Nix and Clifton decided to join the agriculture program. With a degree, they said they could enter other domains of the agriculture industry, such as teaching or chemical sales.
Rayfield said he agrees that holding a diploma from N.C. State, or any of the other land-grant colleges in North Carolina that offer agriculture education, highly increases a farmer’s competitiveness in the marketplace.
“We offer the newest technology and the most current research to our students. We try to give them a taste of everything,” he said. “One thing we try [to] instill in students is, as much of a value there is in carrying on agricultural traditions, it is always a safe bet to have something to fall back on. It will put you that much ahead.”
Dorm rooms, lab reports and Western Boulevard are a long way from the plow and the field. But with classes such as agriculture economics and farm management under their belts, the connection between the farm and college doesn’t seem quite so distant to Cowin, Clifton and Nix.
“Getting away from the farm isn’t easy. There’s days I want to pack up and say ‘to hell with college.’ But I know I can’t do that. These next four years here could be the rest of my life if something ever happens to farming,” Clifton said.
“He just takes the tractor another round/ And pulls the plow across the ground/ And sends up another prayer/ He says Lord I never complain I never ask why/ But please don’t let my dream run dry/ Underneath, Underneath this/ Amarillo sky.”