"Thirty years ago there were 91,000 farms … in North Carolina," says Dr. Walden, a North Carolina Cooperative Extension specialist. "Today there are only 53,000.

"But farms are getting bigger. The average farm in 1974, for example, had 123 acres. Today it’s 170 acres.

And even though there are fewer farms and farmers, "we are producing more," he adds. "In fact today we produce four times the amount of agricultural commodities than we did 30 years ago.

"These megafarms are really replacing small farms, and what’s happening with the megafarms [is] they can take better advantage of technology and thereby reduce their per unit cost and thus produce more," Walden says. "So this is a big change in the complexion of North Carolina farming."