by Jane Winik Sartwell, Carolina Public Press March 31, 2025
Corn farmers on food stamps and taking second jobs. Equipment not being repaired. Debts going unpaid.
That’s the reality for many North Carolina corn growers this spring.
Last year was the worst season for the crop in state history, according to Ronnie Heiniger, a corn specialist at N.C. State. Drought wiped out acre after acre in eastern North Carolina last summer. Hurricane Helene devastated any crops left in the mountains.
Normally a $750 million dollar business, corn yielded only $250 million in 2024.
The economic cost to farmers — and their communities — couldn’t be more serious. And with a moderate drought stretching into the early days of this planting season, some are worried about more bad luck to come.
Corn is particularly sensitive to drought due to the crop’s very short window of pollination: This critical period of growth is just a few days long. In North Carolina, that vulnerable timeframe usually happens in June. If no rain falls during those days, corn will simply not continue to grow and yields will sharply decline.
“It was just about as bad as it could get (last season),” Heiniger recalled. “There’s no recovering from 60 days without rainfall. The mood among these farmers is very depressed. Some don’t know where to turn.”
But the N.C. House of Representatives is trying to help, hoping that the money allocated by the Corn Farmers Recovery Act, or HB 296, will be enough to keep the industry going.
The bill — which has yet to make it past the Appropriations Committee, the Rules Committee, the House and Senate — would transfer nearly $90 million from the State Emergency Response and Disaster Relief Fund to the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. The money would go toward the creation of a 2024 Agricultural Disaster Corn Crop Loss Program, which corn farmers could apply to receive relief funds.
“To be honest, I don’t think most farmers thought the state was going to pay much attention to them,” Heiniger admitted. “This comes as a complete surprise.”
Corn farmers ‘at risk’
Corn is a summer staple on tables across North Carolina, but the crop also is necessary for feeding livestock and producing ethanol, which has a variety of uses. Sampson and Duplin counties, where pigs outnumber people 38 to 1, are home to the largest hog industries in the country. A shortage of feed could make that billion dollar business less profitable, too.
“I think a whole lot of farmers will be applying for this funding if it passes,” Zach Parker, an extension agent in Sampson County, told Carolina Public Press. “I don’t think devastation is understatement in the slightest. As for this summer, the only certainty is uncertainty. But I don’t think the corn industry is going anywhere. We have animals to feed.”
The bill would have the greatest economic impact in eastern North Carolina — the region with the largest, most valuable corn farms.
“In Wilson County, corn farmers have really been at risk,” said state Rep. Dante Pittman, a Democrat who serves Wilson and Nash counties and co-sponsored the Corn Farmers Recovery Act. “We saw an almost $4 million drop in income from corn in Wilson alone.
“The thing about this industry is that we don’t know what this year’s weather is going to bring. Anything we can do to prevent that loss from being devastating is necessary.”
Desperation down on the farm
With the cost of farming supplies high and crop commodity prices low, farmers are growing desperate.
“This bill will not only help farmers, but the farm communities that survive on selling fertilizer, chemicals, seeds, tractors and farm labor,” Heiniger explained. “It will help these rural communities where farmers are turning to food aid for their kids at school.”
The bill is geared toward those who grow corn, but since most farmers harvest a diverse set of crops, the money would in turn support production of soybeans, cotton, sweet potatoes and other North Carolina staples, according to Mike Yoder, an associate director of the College of Agriculture at N.C. State.
But some, like Rhonda Garrison, have concerns about the bill. Like, how will the relief funds be allocated? That’s something Garrison, director of the Corn Growers Association of North Carolina, wants to know.
“The bill is pretty ambiguous in terms of the formula for distributing the money,” Garrison contends. “I guess farmers will just have to apply for it and see what happens.”
But she doesn’t think the money will come too late to be useful.
“There were some farmers — overleveraged farmers who were already on the edge — that were done in completely by 2024,” Garrison said. “But not the majority. The potential money from this bill will likely go toward paying down debt.”
As planting season approaches, North Carolina corn farmers face difficult decisions about the future. There is a possibility the state will face some kind of natural disaster in 2025, whether it be hurricane, drought or continued fires.
“Us farmers rejoice in suffering because it produces character,” Heiniger said. “That’s what these farmers are trying to do: hold onto their character so they can get some hope and keep on going.”
by Jane Winik Sartwell, Carolina Public Press April 24, 2025
Six months ago, Washington Regional Medical Center in Plymouth declared bankruptcy for the second time in five years. Now, hospital leadership hopes that the facility will emerge from this latest financial hardship by late May.
That’s good news to the 10,713 residents of Washington County who need the hospital to stay in business. It’s the only one around.
The bad news is that it has never been harder to keep a rural hospital afloat, especially one that’s not connected to a larger health system. In adjacent Martin County, Martin General Hospital closed its doors in 2023. Thirteen more counties in the northeastern region of the state don’t have hospitals at all.
Should Washington Regional get through this, it will serve as a rare example of a rural hospital taking control of its shaky finances and preserving essential services for North Carolinians.
The good doctor
When Washington Regional Medical Center filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, it owed millions to a long list of creditors.
Dominion Energy is due roughly $300,000. The Washington County Tax Office is asking for over $150,000. Washington Regional also owes money to General Electric as well as a number of vendors, including the company that handles the hospital’s pharmaceutical operations. The full list of creditors includes more than 70 companies and organizations.
Texas-based Affinity Health Partners purchased the Washington County hospital after a catastrophic 2019 bankruptcy that led to liquidation under its previous owners. But by the end of the year, patients were back on the hospital floor.
Washington County, one of the poorest areas in North Carolina, also hosts some of the highest rates of infant mortality and other adverse health conditions, such as obesity and heart disease.
That makes Washington Regional Medical Center, with its 25 beds, a lifeline in an otherwise barren health landscape. It’s why the facility is designated as a “critical access hospital” by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.
When neighboring Martin General Hospital closed, emergency room visitation at Washington Regional increased from 450 patients per month to over 600.
“The importance of the hospital cannot be overstated,” Plymouth Mayor Brian Roth told Carolina Public Press. “Especially since we’ve gotten all the patients who would have gone to Martin General.”
Washington Regional is ‘here to stay’
If Washington Regional did close, residents would have to drive hours to reach the nearest hospital — ECU Health Medical Center in Greenville. The flat, piney swampland on the Albemarle Sound is not easy to navigate, and public transit is pretty much nonexistent.
“We cannot lose the hospital here,” Roth said. “It just cannot happen.”
CEO Frank Avignone promises that it won’t.
“We used bankruptcy as a tool to reorganize our debt,” he explained. “We basically did it for one vendor who was giving us a hard time, and now that that is taken care of, the hospital is doing well. Patient volumes are up. We have a brand new CT scanner so we are increasing cardiac and pulmonary care. We have new doctors on staff. A new OB/GYN on staff. We’re not some fly-by-night community hospital being run by a crook using it as an ATM machine.
“The hospital is here to stay unless it burns to the ground.”
Washington Regional is not currently performing surgeries. Hospitals typically use specialty procedures as a way to generate revenue and offset the high costs of, say, operating an emergency room. The hope is that the hospital will renew surgical procedures at some point, adding a layer of financial security.
Meanwhile, another threat is looming: the $880 million cut to Medicaid currently being discussed by Republicans in Congress.
At Washington Regional Medical Center, 60% of patients are covered by Medicare or Medicaid, making the program a crucial source of funding for the hospital.
If that coverage goes away, the hospital’s finances may be thrown back into peril.
“We treat folks on Medicaid. That’s our population and that’s what we’re designed to do,” Avignone said. “We just have to balance the books. That’s what I’ve been trying to do — and it’s working.”
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Left
This assessment considers the overall tone and context of the content. The article discusses the challenges faced by rural hospitals, particularly Washington Regional Medical Center, and highlights the importance of public health services like Medicaid for vulnerable populations. It presents a sympathetic view of the hospital’s financial struggles, linking them to broader public policy issues (e.g., potential cuts to Medicaid proposed by Republicans). The emphasis on social welfare and the vital role of community health services reflect a center-left perspective focused on the importance of public healthcare systems and support for low-income residents. However, the piece does not overly politicize the issue and maintains an informative, fact-based approach, which prevents it from being categorized as far-left.
www.thecentersquare.com – By Alan Wooten | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-04-23 16:32:00
(The Center Square) – State Board of Elections members are to remain the appointments of the governor of North Carolina and not shift to the state auditor on May 1, a three-judge panel in Wake County Superior Court said Wednesday.
The ruling impacts a portion of the third disaster relief bill from the General Assembly, though not the $252 million designated for western North Carolina’s recovery from Hurricane Helene. The 132-page proposal was heavily scrutinized because only the first 13 pages were related to Helene, and the remainder on changes to authority of elected positions.
Josh Stein was attorney general at the time and governor-elect, and Roy Cooper was in the final weeks of his second four-year term as governor. Both are Democrats. State Auditor Dave Boliek is a Republican.
The five-member state board and five-member county boards of elections are typically three members of the party of the governor, and two members of the state’s other major party.
Neither is the largest voting bloc. The state’s more than 7.4 million registered voters have more signing up as unaffiliated (37.6%) than any of the eight permitted parties.
In making the ruling, the court order said state and county boards “exercise executive functions” and paired that with a state Supreme Court ruling on Article III of the state constitution. It says the governor has “control over” the commissions and boards that are “executive in character.”
Critics say the state and county boards side with respective parties, creating many 3-2 votes. The Legislature, in addition to this attempted change, tried also to reduce the size of the state and county boards and change the appointments through a legislative act.
That, too, failed.
On social media, Stein wrote, “The North Carolina Constitution puts the governor in charge of executing the law. That’s what the voters elected me to do, so that’s what I’ll do.”
Cooper issued a veto of the legislation and each chamber of the General Assembly was successful on an override vote.
The duties of the State Board of Elections are not in the constitution. The auditor’s duties are as “prescribed by law.”
Stein, who advocated for cooperation with the Legislature upon taking his oath on Jan. 1 and in his State of the State address, has additional litigation against lawmakers pending Disaster Relief-3/Budget/Various Law Changes, known also as Senate Bill 382.
SUMMARY: Pope Francis’ body lies in state at St. Peter’s Basilica for public viewing ahead of his funeral on Saturday. The public has been gathering to pay their respects, with lines sometimes stretching over five hours. Following the funeral, he will be buried in Rome’s Basilica of St. Mary Major. A conclave to elect a new pope will begin after May 6, with 138 cardinals voting until a two-thirds majority is reached. The process will be signaled by smoke from the Vatican chimney: black for inconclusive votes, white for a new pope. Francis is remembered for his humility, care for the poor, and progressive leadership.
The body of Pope Francis is lying in state in St. Peter’s Basilica, where it will remain for three days until his funeral Saturday, expected to be attended by world leaders including US President Donald Trump.
His body was transferred to the basilica during a procession earlier Wednesday, and was followed by a service led by Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who holds the position of “camerlengo” (or chamberlain) tasked with making arrangements for the funeral and conclave in the weeks ahead.
WRAL is your Raleigh, North Carolina news source. Check out our videos for the latest news in Raleigh, local sports, Raleigh weather, and more at https://WRAL.com
#localnews #northcarolina
