Jaimie McGirt was on a Zoom call with a friend when the first rains of Hurricane Helene reached North Carolina. She recalls discussing the early storm conditions, casually wondering how long the power would hold.
“We were all unaware of the full effect and magnitude that the storm would have on an entire region because it was initially just rainfall,” says McGirt, RAFI’s Agricultural Conservation Manager. “And so it was very lighthearted, with no awareness of what was about to happen in the next few days.”
The Category 4 storm would prove to be one of the most destructive disasters the state had ever seen. Over the next two days, while traveling to RAFI’s Come to the Table conference, McGirt began receiving messages and photographs of the damage from farmer friends across Western North Carolina. The storm’s impact on the region far surpassed all expectations.
Hurricane Helene’s historic rainfall, strong winds, landslides, tornadoes, and record-breaking flooding would end up claiming over 100 lives, destroying or damaging over 73,000 homes, and causing $60 billion in damage in North Carolina alone. The third-deadliest hurricane of the modern era, Helene reached hundreds of miles inland and ravaged states across the U.S. South and Southern Appalachia, devastating a region that had been previously regarded as a “climate haven,” sheltered from extreme weather disasters. Despite farmers’ best efforts to prepare for the storm, the high winds and heavy rains damaged and destroyed farm buildings, equipment, and critical infrastructure; washed away crops, livestock, vegetation, and topsoil; and wiped out roads, bridges, and power lines, leaving many stranded and cut off from relief efforts.
As news of the devastation poured in, RAFI sprang into action. It was the start of a months-long coordinated effort to help farmers through the crisis, bridge critical gaps in immediate relief, and begin the path toward long-term recovery.
“The morning we gathered to host our conference — an all-hands-on-deck kind of endeavor for RAFI — we knew we had to act fast to help farmers facing some overwhelming challenges,” says RAFI Executive Director Edna Rodriguez. “With many of us in the same room, we coordinated a multi-pronged response — connecting with farmers in our networks, talking with government employees about disaster aid, and launching our communications and fundraising efforts. It’s a clear example of how collective effort can help us all move forward — even in the toughest times.”
In the “Situation Room”
On September 30, RAFI staff gathered at The Impact Center in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, for the first in-person Come to the Table conference since 2019. As the devastating impact of the hurricane started becoming apparent, staff huddled in a side room to assess the situation and strategize a response. From this so-called “situation room,” RAFI staff quickly coordinated a multi-faceted, organization-wide relief effort.
Policy team members established contact with staff at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and regional Farm Service Agency (FSA) offices to understand their assessment of the destruction and stay updated on the federal response. RAFI’s development team launched an online appeal to raise funds for direct relief for farmers and set up a basket to collect donations from conference attendees. Lead Farmer Advocate Benny Bunting set about organizing supplies for farmers in need. Conference attendees also pitched in: farmer Nathan Galaviz and Theo Feaster of Happy Dirt helped coordinate food and water collection and mobilized deliveries of hay and feed to the western part of the state.
The most critical work was making contact with farmers on the ground. In the earliest stages, RAFI technical assistance staff reached out to farmers in their database, ensuring each farmer had a single point of contact to simplify communication. Dozens of farmers also called the RAFI Farmer Crisis Hotline.
The first priority was checking in to make sure farmers were safe and connecting them with resources to address their immediate needs. For Liz Richardson, RAFI’s Farm Advocacy Program Manager, it was also a time for lending a compassionate ear to people’s struggles. “As a hotline operator during that time frame, my role initially was having conversations with people who were calling in, receiving their stories, and holding space for them to express what they were experiencing,” she says. “At that point, the shock and the trauma that people were experiencing was very fresh. So it was important to listen and let people express their tears, their sense of overwhelm before discussing next steps and what some of their options were.”
The next step for staff was to help farmers document loss and damages to their farm and report them to FSA. This step was critical for getting a foot in the door for federal disaster financial assistance, both in the immediate term and if additional funding programs were created in the future. RAFI technical assistance staff worked with farmers to create detailed, item-by-item lists of everything that was damaged and lost, from infrastructure, supplies, and equipment to crops and livestock. From there, they could begin categorizing the damages and identify applicable aid programs they could qualify for.
The damages farmers reported ranged from moderate to catastrophic. Reports came in of landslides wiping out entire farms, while floodwaters inundated cropland and decimated fence lines and building foundations. “[We saw] substantial infrastructure damage, but also soil loss and really deep gullies being cut into fields that are going to take substantial repair, as well as extreme creek and river bank damage and vegetation loss of native grasses and native vegetation corridors that are going to take time to repair,” says Richardson. As RAFI amassed information on the full scope of the storm’s impact on farmers, staff members were able to relay that information to federal agencies so they would have a better understanding of needs on the ground.
Support Hub
In the days and weeks following the hurricane, RAFI staff set into the task of helping farmers access much-needed aid. For the first few weeks, the response team met daily to coordinate efforts across programs, ensuring the organization’s technical assistance, policy, fundraising, and farmer relief granting work complemented and built on one another to address the full scope of need.
This was also a time of establishing consistent communication with partner organizations across North Carolina and neighboring states. RAFI coordinated with organizations like Organic Growers School, Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project, and Carolina Farm Stewardship Association to quickly share information on resources for farmers, refer farmers for financial or technical assistance, and identify any gaps or areas of duplication to make sure each organization could effectively maximize its impact.
RAFI also worked with grassroots leaders who stepped up to support their communities on the ground. Blue Ridge Women in Agriculture and the Mountain Horticultural Crops Research and Extension Center staff mobilized volunteer cleanups at farms in their regions, and individual farmers stepped up as well. “I know some farmers actually took on a role of organizing support and resources for the more affected farmers,” says McGirt. Farmers and their neighbors banded together to build bridges to reach their stranded neighbors, and others coordinated “hay drops” at their local volunteer fire department. “And people who took on a role like that, I think, were critical because they were trusted people in their own communities.”
| Helene by the Numbers 221 farmers receiving technical assistance 71 farmers receiving quick response small emergency relief payments $282,000 raised Generous support from 11 foundations and over 200 individual donors |
Meanwhile, RAFI’s development team ran a fundraising appeal for donations to the newly established Hurricane Farmer Relief Fund. Over 200 individuals and small groups from across the country contributed, raising over $47,000. Generous support from foundation partners brought in an additional $235,000. These funds supported technical assistance activities, farm infrastructure rebuilding grants, and quick-response small emergency relief payments for affected farmers. These emergency payments provided immediate aid without a lengthy application process, helping to tide farmers over as they began to navigate federal assistance offerings. Farmers could use the funds for anything from repairing fencing and greenhouses, to purchasing compost or cover crop seeds to rebuild their soils, to paying bills and employees.
As the federal response to the crisis took shape, RAFI was in constant contact to update farmers on the programs that were becoming available. RAFI’s Farm Services Director, Tee Turner, created an online hub with multi-lingual resources, a curated list of assistance programs for farmers, and general tips for navigating aid, while the technical assistance team helped guide farmers through the process of applying.
“In normal times, it’s hard enough to understand federal financial assistance programs, but after a devastating disaster that destroyed almost everything you produce and your infrastructure, understanding these programs is like ten times harder,” says McGirt. “So we saw the need for this individualized assistance to help farmers through the process.”
Technical assistance providers helped farmers triage which programs were the best fit and walked them through the next steps, like calling their FSA agent, organizing their documentation of damages and losses, and completing application forms. In some cases, RAFI staff joined in on farmers’ FSA appointments to help ask questions or prompt further explanations to make sure all details were discussed. In total, RAFI was in contact with 221 impacted farmers, providing varying levels of personalized assistance.
Bridging the Gaps
One of the biggest challenges with federal aid is the time it takes for applications to be processed and approved. “It’s hard enough that this has happened, but then the difficulty of going through the process to get the resources you need to fix the problem was a big theme,” says Liz Richardson. “Though they were facing something really traumatic, most farmers have a can-do attitude. And so they were gung-ho about wanting to fix things right away.” Unfortunately, many relief programs set rigid protocols for farmers to access funds, requiring them to get permission from their local FSA before they can begin certain repairs. The strict requirements and long wait periods often fail to provide farmers the flexibility they need to take timely action post-disaster, which can be frustrating and re-traumatizing for many.
The hurricane also laid bare the limited ability of federal disaster policies to serve small and diversified farms. Many USDA emergency relief programs are predicated on federal crop insurance coverage, generally focusing on financial assistance for larger-scale single-crop producers. Only two of the over 200 farmers who received RAFI assistance were covered through the FSA’s Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP).
As these limitations became apparent, RAFI’s policy team contacted agencies to find solutions for farmers who would fall through the gaps. “We’re in a bridge role,” says RAFI’s Policy Co-Director, Aaron Johnson. The policy team used information and feedback from farmers on the ground to identify the kinds of assistance these farmers needed.
Responding to the advocacy of RAFI and other partners, USDA issued waivers to speed up the application process and allow farmers to begin needed cleanup efforts. These ranged from waiving certain inspection requirements to allowing farmers to remove debris and replace infrastructure without prior FSA approval.
In other cases, RAFI worked with agencies to figure out existing discretionary authority within a program that could meet the unique needs of small farmers. For example, for the Emergency Conservation Program (ECP), most of the institutional knowledge among FSA agents in North Carolina revolved around large-scale livestock and poultry operations in the eastern part of the state. RAFI worked with FSA at both the federal and local levels to delve deeper into how small-scale and diversified farms could utilize that program.
“We were able to get past the lack of public information about that program and found out that ECP really does cover a lot of different things, including cover crop establishment or different kinds of debris removal,” says Johnson. “There are limitations to what you can and cannot do within any given federal program because the law dictates what you can and can’t do. And so the game is trying to figure out what flexibilities there are and what things they can change or adapt to work better that’s within their authority.”
In some cases, flexibilities within the federal aid machine were not enough to overcome statutory gaps. One major challenge was the lack of funding for repairing farm access roads and bridges, which are not adequately covered by any USDA or FEMA program. In these cases, RAFI turned to philanthropy to help bridge the gap.
“One of the interesting things that became clear very early on was that a lot of philanthropy folks think that the federal government takes care of farmers after disasters and that philanthropy isn’t needed,” says RAFI’s Development Director Susan Alan. “And we were having to educate them about how that was not the case. I think once they began to understand that, it shifted the dynamic somewhat and opened up some philanthropic giving.”
Thanks to support from philanthropic donors, Phase 2 of RAFI’s hurricane response includes grants of up to $10,000 for projects to rebuild farm infrastructure. RAFI has awarded grants to 14 farmers.
The Long Road to Recovery
For Jaimie McGirt, the experience of seeing people come together to rebuild has been a testament to the grit and resilience of the Appalachian community.
“I have seen so many instances of farmers and community members banding together to solve problems that they could not afford to wait for someone else to solve for them,” she says. “Having formerly lived in western North Carolina for 10 years and being very involved in the farm community then, it was clear how much grit the western North Carolina community and the Appalachian culture has. And this disaster was no exception.”
Now, months after Helene, much of the debris has been cleared away. However, for many farmers in RAFI’s network, the work to rebuild remains ongoing. For some, recovery could take years.
RAFI technical assistance staff worked with diversified farmers with perennial fruit production, agroforestry systems, or regenerative practices whose approach to land stewardship was a labor of love that took years or decades to cultivate. McGirt recalls one farmer saying, “I’ve been farming for 15 years, and when I think about all of the things that need to be repaired and restored — I can fix a fence. I can buy more supplies. But I can’t just replace 13 years of topsoil that has washed away overnight.”
Losses like this can bring a sense of deep grief and uncertainty for the future. Recovery will require not just the grit and resilience inherent to the region but also federal, state, and local agency support designed with all scales and types of producers in mind. Technical assistance from trusted organizations will remain critical to ensure that farmers have equitable access to relief programs. RAFI is committed to offering ongoing technical assistance as long as farmers need it and to being a partner that walks with them through the process of rebuilding.
“I want to echo some voices I have heard out of western North Carolina after the storm, which is that for the rest of us in the state and in communities not affected, that we not forget them,” says McGirt. “We can’t forget people after the triage and initial treatment stage is over. This is a time to ensure that we wrap around in support and create ways for affected communities to be together and create resilience.”
It’s also a time to help communities prepare for the next disaster. Scientists estimate that climate change played a significant role in amplifying Helene’s intensity and will make storms like this one increasingly frequent. RAFI continues to work with farmers to build on-farm resilience and make sure they have the tools and information they need for the next time disaster strikes. Armed with strengthened relationships with federal and state agency staff and other partner organizations, RAFI stands ready to respond.
Kara Hoving is a writer and policy advocate specializing in sustainable food systems and climate change communication. She helps nonprofits tell solutions-based stories that build momentum for positive change.