 Originally I had planned this site to seek sponsorship to help save our farms but could not bring myself to ask for monies. Now I plan to make this entire process transparent of exposing some of the corruption that has befallen many a farmer and a good part of the reason why there are food shortages today in the world. The production and distribution of food is far beyond my capacity to explain but my insight is nevertheless pertinent to the issues at hand. My grandfather Charlie Smith and Blondie James Day purchased the base farm in 1910. My grandfather told me he could bend the top of this old oak tree tops to the ground when he moved here. I love this old tree. It has weather many a storm including Hurricane Hazel in October 1954. I remember looking out the window with rain blowing in sheets across the pasture behind this old oak tree as my then 70 old year grandfather carried baby pigs under his denim overall jacket to safer shelter. My grandmother was wringing her hands in fear as Charlie made multiple trips to carry the baby pigs to a safer barn. My beloved grandparents died in 1968 within 35 days of each other. My father Emery and I brought granddaddy's land in 1969 from the estate and in 1976 I was fortunate enough to purchase my Uncle Burke's farm. According to the register of deeds my grandfather actually purchased Burke's land at the court house steps in 1935 for $3100. I started farming this land in 1973 and since that time have farmed something over 40,000 acres in multiple counties in the northern tier of North Carolina. Unfortunately this area of North Carolina has very inconsistent weather for grain production with frequent droughts, early and late freezes, hurricanes as mentioned above and even a freakish fire in our soybean fields in 2008. I thought the fire to be odd in 2008, now in light of other obvious crop tampering it is even more suspicion. I love this land and think it is noble to grow grains that help feed the world. In many ways the world of agriculture and the country seem quiet and tranquil but in reality it is a world of great turmoil for many of us. It is extremely hard to over come natural disasters like persistent droughts and late freezes, hurricanes, etc. and any insurance that can been used to cover such disasters is not adequate protection and lenders inflexibility are no help. I will not get into what I call the financial indiscretions at this time but there are a least a couple of potential books to cover the subject. All one has to do is read what is in the media to get an idea of what is happening to real people in real life situations. Our agronomic hard times are complicated significantly by the late life care of my parents. My father died in 1997 after a very traumatic 2 years of colon cancer and my mother has had 24 hour care since 2002 suffering with dementia and Alzheimer's. I have been the default care manager of my parents and my brother as the executive of the estate the financial manager and what a war it has been. Bottom line between the natural disasters and complicated by health care for my parents we both are respectively emotionally and financially strained beyond the limit. I am so proud of my grandfather for saving the baby pigs during one of the strongest hurricanes to ever hit North Carolina and I intend to do everything legally possible to save these lands to provide food for future generations during natural disasters and the perfect financial storm called The Great Recession. Ronald N Day | home contact mission documents resources blog |
