In the fall of 2024, two major hurricanes swept through the Southeast U.S. — Helene and Milton — causing significant destruction to farms from Florida to Tennessee. Southern Appalachia was especially hard hit by Helene, damaging hundreds of farms and disrupting a vibrant regional food system. RAFI staff immediately began responding to the needs of impacted farmers and continued to provide intensive support through 2024 and into 2025. We launched our Hurricane Farmer Relief Fund, which raised over $ 290,000 to support Phase 1 Relief efforts and Phase 2 Rebuilding efforts. We are deeply grateful to the 11 foundations and more than 200 individuals and businesses who gave to the fund.
Getting Funds Out the Door
All of the impacted farmers who received financial support were nominated by RAFI staff working with the farmers or by organizations serving farmers in the region. We streamlined the process to ease any burden on the farmers.
Phase 1 emergency relief needs ranged from helping to pay bills until the farm could generate income again, to purchasing repair supplies, to keeping employees paid. We received many messages like these:
“This helps us to alleviate the financial strain on our family and farm during these uncertain times. We are resilient and will continue to farm and provide vitality to our community.” Marion, NC farmer
“A landslide covered the front half of our farm, sweeping away a mature blueberry orchard, a 50-foot greenhouse, and the soil and crops growing in the area. This emergency relief payment will help pay the bills until we can get back up and growing.” Canton, NC farmers
“I’ll use this funding to purchase supplies to repair the livestock fencing so the Guardian dogs, sheep, and goats will be contained on the farm property.” Lansing, NC farmer
Phase 2 rebuilding grants, most of which were $10,000, were awarded to impacted diversified crop and/or livestock producers in 9 NC counties and 2 SC counties. The majority of needs were repairing access such as bridges or driveways and damage to farm structures like barns and wash and pack areas, constructing culverts and other erosion prevention measures, and efforts to rebuild soil loss.
The story of Against the Grain Farm
Holly Whitesides and Andy Bryant have been farming on the land that is Against the Grain farm since 2012. It is a 35-acre diversified farm located 15 minutes from downtown Boone, NC, in the community of Zionville. The farm raises a broad array of certified organic vegetables on about 2 acres and pasture-raised, GMO-free, Animal Welfare Approved meats on the remaining pastures, woodlots, and hay fields.
Hurricane Helene severely impacted Against the Grain Farm’s operation, damaging critical infrastructure and natural resources and shuttering their vegetable market outlets. During the flooding, the creek adjacent to the farm jumped a culvert, flooded through their barn, and burst back through the side foundation, leaving the entire structure unstable. The floodwater coursed through the farm, tearing down the fenceline, busting through the windshield of their market van, and significantly reshaping the creek banks.
After the water receded, the flooding had deposited rock, silt, and vegetative debris throughout the lower farm landscape, requiring a massive undertaking in debris removal. While their higher fields were spared from flooding, they suffered a loss of multiple markets across a multi-county region–their county farmers market location was damaged and relocated, and their restaurant purchasing contracts ceased when they closed due to lack of tourism business.
While funds from sources such as the Emergency Conservation Program and other non-profits helped with some of the damage repair and clean-up, little was available for the damage to the barn.
RAFI’s Phase 2 Rebuilding grant provided $10,000 to help Holly and Andy repair and reinforce the barn foundation. This grant allowed Against the Grain to secure a matching grant, and the combination of funds for repair saved the entire structure from collapse and allowed farm operations to continue into 2025.
Technical Assistance for Disaster Relief
Within days of Helene dissipating, RAFI staff began compiling a list of government Disaster Assistance Program options and the requirements for each program that producers had to meet to successfully submit an application for relief. Our technical assistance staff reached out to farmers in the impacted regions and instructed them via text message, phone calls, and emails on how to document loss. Once producers were able to submit their documentation to our TA providers, they received application completion support and coaching on how to work with their local FSA office representatives.
An early difficulty was the lack of correct and uniform information from FSA offices. Seeing multiple instances where farmers from neighboring counties were provided with contrasting information, RAFI’s policy team began communicating with the USDA to both get accurate information to share with farmers and convey to the agency what the on-the-ground needs of farmers were. Also early on, a robust collaboration among farmer-serving organizations developed with regular meetings and sharing of information. This proved very useful in cutting down duplication of efforts. And many farmers also acted as information sources for their fellow farmers by collecting and sharing data about the Disaster Assistance programs and other recovery resources from RAFI.
What’s Next?
Because RAFI has helped farmers in the Southeast through natural disasters for decades, we had some resources in place. But our experience with Hurricane Helene highlighted the necessity for RAFI to develop comprehensive, ongoing disaster response practices that can be swiftly activated. So we have formed a permanent Disaster Response Team that includes staff from all areas – policy, direct service, communications, fundraising, and operations – to evaluate past disaster responses and develop strategies and processes to respond to future disasters.
Our local and regional food systems depend on small- and mid-scale farmers’ ability to repair and rebuild after disasters. With the climate changing, it is not a matter of if, but when the next disaster happens. While we saw many, many examples of Western NC farmers modeling strength and endurance by working together to restore their communities and their farming operations, they can’t do it without support. Thank you for helping the farmers impacted by Hurricanes Helene and Milton!