Source: MOUNTAIN XPRESS, 10/29/20


Fall is always busy on Western North Carolina’s small-scale poultry farms, but three years ago, late October found growers grappling with an unexpected challenge: The state’s only U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected poultry processing facility for independent operators, the Foothills Pilot Plant in Marion, shut down due to a lack of operating capital. Farms all over Southern Appalachia that had depended on the plant were left with flocks roaming the fields while customers waited for local chicken, turkey and duck just weeks from Thanksgiving. 

For more of this story, click here.