Michelle Lotker

Apr 17, 2024 | pbsnc.org | Michelle Lotker

This installation is part of a pilot program organized by EnerWealth Solutions, LLC. CEO Ajulo Othow hopes it can be a model for how solar-energy generation can be deployed across the rural South and beyond so that rural communities also benefit from investments in renewable energy. “I realized after spending about two decades in rural development that solar-energy investments were going to be the new source of revenue coming into rural communities.

Apr 12, 2024 | m.farms.com | Michelle Lotker

By Michelle LotkerRegionally adapted and tropical crops could be the answer If you ask Chris Smith, executive director of the Utopian Seed Project, to describe the climate of the Southeast, he hesitates to give one answer. “It’s this enormous piece of land. So even to compare farming practices within the Southeast is fairly challenging because you get into the Deep South, and it’s a totally different experience to farming in western North Carolina, where we’re in the mountains,” he explains.

Apr 10, 2024 | pbsnc.org | Michelle Lotker

The Utopian Seed Project in western NC is developing regionally adapted varieties of crops and introducing tropical staples to increase resiliency.

Apr 5, 2023 | pbsnc.org | Michelle Lotker

By investing in a no-till process, Beverly and Seth actually started saving money. “As a farm, it’s all about efficiency, it’s all about profitability. And we were able to cut our costs as to the dollars that it took go into those fields,” Beverly explains. “We were able to build the soil quality. We were able to cut down on fertilizer cost.