Severe storms cause more than $1M in damages to fields at Lewis Farms

PENDER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — Farmers across the country are feeling the impacts of this pandemic, including ones here in the Cape Fear.

But after Monday’s storm did some major damage, one farmer in Pender County is trying to clean up a new mess.

“I’ve never seen this kind of damage up here in my lifetime, even with a hurricane,” Lewis Farms’ Calvin Lewis said.

Lewis is now worried about still being able to harvest their berries in the peak of the season amidst the destruction.

“I’m worried about our labor and our people and employees continuing to be able to harvest the crops we’ve got,” he said.

Lewis says Mondays storm tore down dozens of wind tunnels, bringing down at least 20 acres of berries along with them. He says a number of blackberries were brought down and need to be stood back up so they can grow and be ready for harvest in June.

“Everything we do is very perishable,” Lewis said. “So we can’t wait a moment to lick our wounds and clean up. We’ve got to be doing it all at the same time.”

Lewis was already worried about having enough workers during the pandemic, and now he needs even more help to rebuild and harvest at the same time. He says thankfully, they still have a high demand.

“They did have a massive hoard-buying surge early on, and then the markets dropped and the demand weakened, but right now we feel like it’s leveling off,” he said.

Other farmers around the country are not feeling that demand though.

“A lot of restaurants are still selling with drive-up and carryout business, but it’s a fraction of what it normally is,” Mark Seitz, with the N.C. Cooperative Extension, said

Seitz is the Pender County Director of the organization. He says a lot of farms rely on selling commercially to restaurants and schools.

“Bigger farms especially, their whole business is geared on volume,” Seitz said. “While the roadside markets allow people to sell to that local consumer, local consumers just don’t buy the quantity that the restaurants do.”

Even though Lewis still has that demand, if he can’t save what’s left of this harvest, he’ll have yet another problem on his hands.

“Unfortunately, it’s just at a time of year that we’ve got everything else going on, and it’s just a lot more difficult,” Lewis said.

Lewis says replacing all of the tunnels and repairing the damages will cost well over $1 million. He just hopes to be able to do it all in time to start over again in August.