A $300,000 recurring allocation for the HRI, a program of Asheville-based nonprofit WNC Communities, stalled in the N.C. General Assembly due to partisan gridlock over the state budget. A joint proclamation between the HRI and the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services now aims to make the hemlock’s future more secure.
With amounts ranging from $3,000 to $6,000, the grants may seem small but can have a huge impact on growing farming operations.
Funding from Buncombe County and the state is going toward the continuing fight against the hemlock woolly adelgid. As part of the effort new predator beetles are being released and a combination of biological and chemical tactics are being deployed in Western North Carolina.
Few crops have been as central to North Carolina’s economy and culture — or as controversial — as tobacco. Historically, its high market value and the relative ease of growing it made tobacco a staple for many Western North Carolina farmers. As late as 2002, 1,995 mountain farms grew tobacco. The crop’s prevalence, however, was […]
Since the 1950s, multitudes of Appalachian-native hemlocks have been sucked dry by an invasive, non-native insect, the hemlock woolly adelgid. But in the last 15 years, entomologists have discovered, captured and released a beetle, native to the Pacific Northwest, that may be the key to the hemlocks’ survival.
