Hurricane Helene hit Western North Carolina at the peak of apple season last year and farmers across the region lost out on millions of dollars after the storm destroyed crops, farm equipment and roads leading to their farms.
As apple season approaches this year, farmers are hoping to recoup some losses, but it will be an uphill battle, said William Kelley, the Henderson County agricultural cooperative extension director.
Since Helene, the region has had notable environmental issues from hailstorms, an unusually cold winter season and a bad pollination season. On top of that, farmers are only now starting to see major government aid from the state, which started sending funds this week to WNC farmers affected by the storm.
“ After a really hard hit last year, everybody expects the next year to be a really good one. And the fact is, it just hasn't been,” Kelley said.
For Danielle Stepp-McCall, whose family has run Stepp’s Hillcrest Orchard for almost half a century, the problem wasn’t losing apple trees – but instead the road that leads to her farm. Helene washed away four chunks of the road, making it unsafe for visitors to come to the pick-your-own farm for about a month.
“We lost four weeks of our 11-week season. The busiest four weeks of the season,” she said.
The orchard relies on agri-tourism for its income – that includes school tours as well as visitors who pick and purchase apples, grapes, sunflowers and purchase baked goods like apple cider donuts.
McCall says business was down last year by about 45% compared to 2023. Other pick-your-own farms estimate similar losses after the storm. According to the state’s agriculture cooperative extension, these types of farms are a roughly $5 million industry in Henderson County. And income is down by more than 25%.
“ We lost at least a couple of thousand bushels of apples that were blown off the trees. We lost over 250 apple trees that still had the crop on them,” said Don Justus, who runs Justus Orchards.
“Our bakery was completely shut down. And with a lot of the roads being washed out, customers couldn't get to us. So we lost a tremendous amount of apples that we had already bagged up in preparation for what should have been a peak season time.”
Farmers get creative for income
Nonprofits and other organizations stepped in to help farms across the region, including the McCalls, who received grants from about half a dozen organizations. Still, McCall estimates about half a million in lost business.
After the storm passed, Danielle and her husband Rex looked around their farm – which was still mostly intact. They saw thousands of apples that were going to waste if not eaten. For a farm that relies entirely on visitors to pick and pay for their apples, it presented an almost existential issue.
Then, Rex had an idea: they should collect all the apples they could and bring them to a friend’s farm in Charlotte to sell.
Danielle initially shot it down.
“ And then about a day after Rex says it, my cousin's wife, who lives in Charlotte, texts me and says, ‘Why don't you call and see if they'll let you come set up at their farm?’ So I said, ‘Okay, Lord, I get the picture.’”
The McCalls now had another problem: the farm relies on visitors to pick the apples and they had no way of collecting the thousands of apples by themselves. So they called in their college-age children, their friends, and basically anyone else who could help them pick up apples.
“We picked 120 bushels, drove to Charlotte, and slung apples all day long,” Stepp-McCall said.
They continued to sell what they could where they could.
“ We sold donuts when we got the power back on, we sold pumpkins, we sold some flowers. We hustled for four weeks, taking stuff off the farm,” she said.
Eventually, the road to the orchard was repaired. There are four patches of still-unpainted asphalt where the road washed away. And apple season is here. For the McCalls, it's been a slow start, and they are hoping that a good turnout at this year’s apple festival will be the start of a good turnout for the rest of the season on their farm.
“That will be somewhat of a telltale sign of how things are gonna go,” Rex said.
