North Carolina’s drought hammers farmers, worsens food insecurity

By Diana Lopez 

As North Carolina weathers one of its worst droughts in more than 18 years, farmers are seeing the results in withering yields of corn, fruits and other crops.

This has affected their bottom line, to be sure, but the effects are more widespread. Hunger relief programs that rely on local produce can’t buy as much at the slightly higher prices that small farmers are having to charge to stay afloat. 

“We really want to support small, mid-sized farmers, and so by incremental increase in price from them, it just means less money that we have available to purchase and get out to our 20-plus food pantry partners around the Triangle,” said Athan Barkoukis, executive director of Farmer Foodshare, a 15-year-old nonprofit that purchases fresh produce from farmers and gives it to food pantries.

Across the state, rising food, transportation and gas prices are making it harder for people to have access to healthy, nutritious food. Many parts of the state are designated as food deserts —  areas where people don’t have access to or must travel long distances to buy healthy food at affordable prices.

In 2026, according to United Healthcare’s community and state department, 1 in 7 people in North Carolina experience food insecurity, and about 16 percent of regions across the state are considered food deserts. Farmer Foodshare is one of several organizations working to help residents in those areas have better access to nutritious food.

The nonprofit works with more than 80 farmers to provide fresh produce to food banks and pantries around the Triangle area. 

Drought effects

The nonprofit works with more than 80 farmers to provide fresh produce to food banks and pantries around the Triangle area.

David Szczepankowski, Farmer Foodshare’s director of operations, said that their farmers have been challenged by this summer’s extreme heat and its overall dry weather. Even with the steady rain that’s fallen in wide swaths of the state over the past two weeks, the North Carolina Drought Update for the assessment period ending July 21 shows nearly 80 percent of the state in severe, extreme or exceptional drought. The rest is in moderate drought or is abnormally dry:

While many of the network’s farmers have irrigation systems, their high-capacity water pumps can be expensive to run. They often operate on diesel fuel, which now costs more than $5 a gallon in North Carolina — up from about $3.50 a year ago, according to AAA data

As farmers try their best to keep their produce alive in hot and dry conditions, the yields and quality are going to be lower, according to Szczepankowski, meaning there will be less to go around.

“For example, something like sweet corn doesn’t pollinate properly when the temperature gets too high,” Szczepankowski said. “The quality will go down so low that the farmers won’t be able to harvest it.”

Pantries that partner with Farmer Foodshare have also felt the effects of the drought on their organizations and communities.

Nora Dicker is executive director at PORCH Hillsborough, a community hunger relief program in northern Orange County. She told NC Health News that a large portion of their service area includes food deserts. Many of their recipients have vegetable gardens, but the heat and drought have taken a toll on those too. 

“A recipient just last week had shared with me how people are hurting more for fresh food,” Dicker said. 

Twanna Joyner Jones, president and founder of The Help Center NC, an organization that fights poverty and hunger, said July is typically really busy for them. But the farmers that they partner with to help distribute produce in Vance, Granville, Franklin and Warren counties haven’t had much for them to pick up. 

“Because of the drought,” she said, “we have not received a lot of calls yet.”

Game changers

Unfortunately, sometimes it takes heavy rains from a hurricane or tropical storm to end a widespread drought, Tom Rickenbach, professor of atmospheric science in the Department of Earth, Environment, and Planning at East Carolina University, told NC Health News.

This year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Weather Service forecasters have predicted a below-normal hurricane season in the Atlantic because of a climate change-driven El Niño. Although the season officially began June 1 and lasts through Nov. 30, August through November often are the busier months for North Carolina.

“To bust a drought, like if we had two back-to-back major hurricanes, that’s unlikely, but that’s possible within the forecast. … That’s something that could be a big game changer,” Rickenbach said.

Without that kind of game changer, though, the U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook for July 16 through Oct. 31 predicts that drought will persist for most of North Carolina, with some improvement in the western part of the state.

Ed White, a farmer at Lil’ Missy’s Produce — a 5 ½ acre farm in Nashville, N.C. — said that he’s able to use an automatic sprinkler system and a drip irrigation system for specific crops. They were also able to put some well water in one field, but the rest depends on rain. 

In early July at the Nash County Farmer’s Market, White had cabbage, squash, potatoes, corn, onions and carrots out on his tables. In an interview with NC Health News, he said his irrigation ponds were really low, and the last time he remembered similar weather challenges was before Hurricane Floyd hit in 1999.

“All we can hope for is during the winter, it’s going to fill ’em back up,” White said. “I don’t want them to fill up all at one time. I’ve been through Floyd, and that’s what scares me about this weather.”

NC Health News reporter Will Atwater contributed to this article.

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