North Carolina becomes the latest state to file or pass legislation prohibiting foreign entities from purchasing farmland.
Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper’s recent executive order to remove the college degree requirement for most state jobs comes at a time when recruitment for some state offices is desperately low.
With a growing population and need for more infrastructure, N.C. Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler stressed an urgent need for more investment in three department areas during a joint House and Senate Agriculture Committee meeting last week in Raleigh: department staff, farmland preservation, and agriculture research.
Catherine Truitt is concerned the state isn’t doing enough to prepare students to work if they choose not to go to college after high school. As the state’s superintendent of public instruction, Truitt raised her concerns at the Council of State meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 1, saying the DPI is tackling the problem in a...
The N.C. State Fair, after a year off because of COVID, is back, and it’s spectacular. Glorious weather and, from my point of view, an almost perfect event. State Agriculture Commission Steve Troxler, fair Manager G. Kent Yelverton, and their staffs deserve tons of credit. Troxler, in canceling the fair last year, showed the type...
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper has just been re-elected. It’s an outcome his two immediate predecessors, Democrat Bev Perdue and Republican Pat McCrory, were unable to accomplish. A sweet as that victory must taste to the governor and his team, his ability to convert the ballots North Carolinians cast in 2020 into policy achievements will...
Republicans can take a breath, even if their signature red is mixed with myriad shades of blue. They keep control of the N.C. Council of State, 6-4, albeit with narrow margins in all the races. The results remain unofficial. Elections officials are dealing with 41,000 provisional and 94,900 outstanding absentee ballots, which either will be...
Whatever you think of it, political polarization hasn’t yet hunted split-ticket voters to extinction. They still matter — and candidates know it.
Each week, staff at Carolina Journal looks back at the week in N.C. politics and chooses several interesting, relevant stories you may have missed. N.C. State Fair: North Carolinanians won’t get to sample overindulgent fried foods or take a spin on some of the fair’s dizzying rides this fall. COVID-19 has killed the 2020 N.C....
Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler and department leaders wrongly spent $22,000 in travel expenses during the N.C. State Fair, a new audit report says. The report from the Office of State Auditor found the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services used the money on hotel stays for the commissioner, chief of staff, and State Fair manager. ...
At last count, there were 48,000 farms tilling crops and tending poultry and livestock on 8.2 million acres of North Carolina soil. Agriculture and agribusiness are the state’s No. 1 industry, contributing $87 billion to the state’s economy. Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler, the man overseeing the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services since 2005,...
