Farm marketings in North Carolina totaled over $7.7 billion in 2001, 7th among the 50 states, with 40% from crop marketings. North Carolina led the nation in the production of tobacco and sweet potatoes, ranked 4th in peanuts, and was also a leading producer of corn, grapes, pecans, apples, tomatoes, and soybeans. Farm life plays an important role in the culture of the state.
The number of farms fell from 301,000 in 1950 to 56,000 in 2002, while the number of acres in farms declined from 17,800,000 to 9,100,000 (7,203,000 to 3,682,000 hectares). At 163 acres (66 hectares), the average North Carolina farm was only 37% the size of the average US farm—a statistic that in part reflects the smaller acreage requirements of tobacco, the state's principal crop. The relatively large number of family farm owneroperators who depend on a modest tobacco allotment to make their small acreages profitable is the basis for North Carolina's opposition to the US government's antismoking campaign and its fight to preserve tobacco price supports.
Although farm employment continues to decline, a significant share of North Carolina jobs—perhaps more than one-third—are still linked to agriculture either directly or indirectly. North Carolina's most heavily agricultural counties are massed in the coastal plain, the center of tobacco, corn, and soybean production, along with a bank of northern piedmont counties on the Virginia border. Virtually all peanut production is in the eastern part of the state, while tobacco, corn, and soybean production spills over into the piedmont. Cotton is grown in scattered counties along the South Carolina border and in a band leading northward across the coastal plain. Beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries, and blueberries are commercial crops in selected mountain and coastal plain locations. Apples are important to the economy of the mountains, and the sand hills are a center of peach cultivation.
In 2002, tobacco production was 357,350,000 lb, 40% of US production. Production and value data for North Carolina's other principal crops were as follows: corn, 58,100,000 bushels, $168,490,000; soybeans, 30,080,000 bushels, $165,440,000; peanuts, 210,000,000 lb, $43,680,000; and sweet potatoes, 4,810,000 hundredweight, $62,530,000.