Local growers awarded NC AgVentures grant

Two area farmers are among 55 to receive between $1,000-$8,000 from this year's awards by the NC AgVentures Farm Grant Program, the N.C. Cooperative Extension Service announced.

Anthony Sawyer of Winterville and Brian and Sara Larson of the Shine community in Greene County won the competitive grants administered by the Extension Service with funding provided through the N.C. Tobacco Trust Fund Commission.

The grants are awarded to innovative projects aimed at diversifying, expanding or implementing new entrepreneurial plans for farm operations, the Extension Service said. Individual grant amounts were not reported.

Sawyer grows 15 varieties of microgreens and edible flowers in a vertical farm. With his grant he will renovate an existing shed into an energy efficient indoor growing facility. (He is working with Mathew Stevens at the Pitt County Extension Office.)

The Larsons plan to expand and update their poultry processing equipment to expand production at the farm, which Brian Larson started in 2010 after a long deployment in South Korea.

He tore up the entire backyard of their subdivision home, planted enough beans, corn, cucumbers, squash, okra and tomatoes to feed the neighbors, and also got chickens, the Extension Service said. Chickens were against the rules but the neighbors really liked fresh eggs, so they were willing to overlook the little flock.

Today they have 45 acres and sell pastured broilers, turkeys, pork, eggs and summer vegetables.

The grant opportunity is available to Farmers in 46 counties: Alamance, Alexander, Alleghany, Anson, Ashe, Cabarrus, Caswell, Catawba, Chatham, Davidson, Davie, Durham, Edgecombe, Franklin, Forsyth, Gaston, Granville, Greene, Guilford, Halifax, Harnett, Iredell, Johnston, Lincoln, Martin, Mecklenburg, Nash, Northampton, Orange, Person, Pitt, Randolph, Rockingham, Rowan, Sampson, Stanly, Stokes, Surry, Union, Vance, Wake, Wayne, Wilson, Wilkes, Warren, and Yadkin.

The North Carolina General Assembly created the North Carolina Tobacco Trust Fund Commission in 2000 to lessen the financial impact to farmers and tobacco-related businesses caused by the sharp decline of tobacco in the agricultural economy.

Cooperative Extension is an educational partnership of the state’s two land-grant universities, North Carolina State and North Carolina A&T State University, county governments and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Its mission is to deliver education and technology that enrich the lives, land and economy of North Carolina.

Read more at: https://agventures.ces.ncsu.edu/grant-program/.