The Challenges of Farming

ORANGE SLICES

By Laurie Paolicelli
Guest Columnist

Orange County North Carolina

Farming has always demanded patience, resilience and a willingness to live with uncertainty. Today, the pressures are especially intense as agricultural land disappears, longtime farmers retire and the economics of traditional farming grow more difficult.

Few people have witnessed those changes as closely as 96-year-old Orange County farmer Ben Lloyd.

“I’ve spent most of my 96 years watching the land around Orange County change. When I was growing up, family farms were everywhere. You knew your neighbors, you helped each other, and most everybody had some connection to the land. Over the years, I’ve watched a lot of those farms disappear, and that’s been hard to see.”

Ben Lloyd, Lloyd’s Dairy in Efland, Orange County, NC.

The story unfolding in Orange County reflects a national trend. According to the latest USDA data, U.S. farmland fell to just under 874 million acres in 2025, a loss of 2.5 million acres in one year and more than 26 million acres since 2017. Research by American Farmland Trust has documented the same long-term pattern: agricultural land is being paved over, fragmented or converted as cities and suburbs expand.

The land is also changing hands. American Farmland Trust estimates that more than 40 percent of the nation’s farmland and ranchland, totaling more than 150 million acres, could change ownership during the next 10 to 20 years as aging landowners retire and pass their property to a new generation. Farmland is often most vulnerable to conversion when it is sold.

The consequences reach well beyond the loss of a familiar landscape. A growing global population will require substantially more food production by 2050. Properly managed farms and ranches also support wildlife and biodiversity, help recharge aquifers, protect water quality and store carbon. Preserving working lands is therefore important to both food security and environmental health.

Lavender Oaks Farm- working farm and wedding venue in Chapel Hill, NC.

For the Lloyd family, however, preservation cannot be separated from the rights of the people who have cared for the land. Ben’s son Craig Lloyd works with local outreach groups to protect farmland while keeping his family’s legacy alive.

“I’ve sometimes said there’s a reason this soil runs so rich and red-brown. It’s been colored by the blood, sweat and tears of generations of families – Black and Native families among them – who cleared these fields, planted the crops, raised the livestock, survived the hard years and kept going so the next generation might have something to call their own.

“Preserving farmland is vital if we want future generations to know that way of life and have the opportunity to farm it themselves.

“But preservation has to go hand in hand with something just as important: property rights. The families who have worked, paid taxes on and cared for these farms for generations ought to have a strong voice in deciding what happens to them. We shouldn’t preserve farmland by taking away the rights of the very families who preserved it in the first place.”

Today, Lloyd’s Farm is managed by the family’s third generation. Craig and Andy Lloyd and their sister, Cheryl Humphrey, have expanded the farm’s agritourism enterprises, hosting weddings, retreats, dances and other celebrations. They also work with community leaders to demonstrate how the adaptive reuse of farms can generate income while keeping land in agricultural use.

Ben remains a presence on the farm, while Craig has become a driving force in reimagining what agritourism can look like there. That commitment is reflected in an annual calendar that includes an antiques festival, a Halloween grounds experience, a Christmas barn sale and other events. Each brings people back to the land and turns the working farm into a community gathering place.

That kind of adaptation can help farms remain viable. The Lloyds are among the Orange County farming families deeply committed to their land, even as row-crop and livestock operations become harder to sustain. By diversifying through agritourism, events and community programming, they are honoring generations of farming heritage while meeting today’s economic realities head-on.

Mckee’s Cedar Creek Farm and Corn Field Maze, Orange County NC

Craig Lloyd encourages everyone to come by the 2026 Hog Day celebration which is a nod to Orange County’s agricultural legacy, family fun and old fashioned BBQ.

Friday, September 18, 2026, 6 PM-10 PM | Saturday, September 19, 2026, 10 AM-6 PM

East Margaret Lane, Hillsborough, NC

L-R, Hog Day event attendee, volunteer

Share your thoughts with me here, Laurie Paolicelli

Disclaimer: Published by Orange County’s Tourism Department through its Public Relations team, this story includes interviews and repurposed content from websites and partner press releases. For more, visit www.visitchapelhill.org or contact Laurie Paolicelli.

Laurie Paolicelli is executive director for the Chapel Hill/Orange County Visitors Bureau, a position she has held since 2005. Laurie has worked in tourism and marketing for twenty-five years, having served in leadership roles in Houston and California convention and visitor bureaus. She is a native of the Twin Ports of Duluth, MN/Superior Wisconsin. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business and Communications from the University Wisconsin-Superior and graduate certification in Technology In Marketing from the UNC-Chapel Hill’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media. This reporter can be reached at Information@TheLocalReporter.press