The Farmer’s Feed amplifies local voices

by Emma Sut­ton

On a Sat­ur­day morn­ing any­where in York Coun­ty, you can shop for local goods and pro­duce on tent-lined streets in Old Town Rock Hill, Fort Mill’s down­town mar­ket or Clover’s Main Street. Fam­i­lies can fill their totes with fresh pro­duce and hand­made goods year-round, a reminder that York Coun­ty agri­cul­ture remains a cen­tral part of our com­mu­ni­ty, even as the land­scape changes with rapid devel­op­ment.

Behind each one of those stands is a small busi­ness own­er bal­anc­ing every­thing from soil health, bud­gets, weath­er fore­casts and, increas­ing­ly, social media. Today, one local voice is help­ing make sure the peo­ple that grow our food are seen and heard.

Through her plat­form, The Farmer’s Feed, Car­o­line Lewis seeks to ampli­fy the voic­es of York County’s farm­ers by giv­ing them the plat­form, tools and skills to tell their own sto­ries.

Long before York Coun­ty became one of the fastest grow­ing areas in the state, much of it was farm­land. Accord­ing to the 2022 Cen­sus of Agri­cul­ture, York Coun­ty is still home to 983 farms that gen­er­ate more than $127 mil­lion in agri­cul­tur­al sales. Many are fam­i­ly-owned oper­a­tions that grow hay, cot­ton, veg­eta­bles, nurs­ery stock and peach­es, along­side cat­tle and poul­try.

But these farms con­tribute much more than food. Amid rapid devel­op­ment, they pre­serve open land, pro­tect soil and water through con­ser­va­tion prac­tices and pass down agri­cul­tur­al knowl­edge that new gen­er­a­tions can’t replace once it’s gone. Farm­ers aren’t just relics of the past—they’re entre­pre­neurs and land stew­ards that pre­serve local his­to­ry.

For Lewis, agri­cul­ture has always been famil­iar. Her father grew up on a dairy farm in Ver­mont, and extend­ed fam­i­ly mem­bers still run farms in New Eng­land and Flori­da. Even while study­ing mar­ket­ing in New Orleans and lat­er liv­ing in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. and New York City, farm­ing and sea­son­al food remained cen­tral in her life.

“I’ve always believed you should plant some­thing every sea­son,” she says.

While vol­un­teer­ing with GrowNYC, Lewis helped farm­ers nav­i­gate social media and mar­ket­ing. She quick­ly real­ized that farm­ers have valu­able sto­ries, but no time to tell them.

“Farm­ers do every­thing,” Lewis says. “They’re mete­o­rol­o­gists, soil sci­en­tists, accoun­tants and sales­peo­ple. Mar­ket­ing ends up on the back­burn­er.”

The Farmer’s Feed brings togeth­er agri­cul­ture and mar­ket­ing, her two pas­sions.

Rather than serv­ing as a mar­keter for just one farm, Lewis takes a broad­er approach. Through video inter­views, pod­casts, social media fea­tures and blog posts, she cre­ates oppor­tu­ni­ties for farm­ers to share their expe­ri­ences in their own words. She also hosts work­shops, often part­ner­ing with Clemson’s Coop­er­a­tive Exten­sion Ser­vice, to teach farm­ers prac­ti­cal com­mu­ni­ca­tion and mar­ket­ing skills.

“Farm­ers don’t need to be gim­micky,” Lewis says. “They just need to show up as them­selves.”

For local farm­ers’ suc­cess, sto­ry­telling mat­ters more than ever. Research shows that younger con­sumers increas­ing­ly dis­cov­er busi­ness­es through social media. Lewis warns that if farm­ers aren’t telling their sto­ries for them­selves, some­one else will tell their sto­ry for them.

Through her work, Lewis wants to rein­force with her audi­ence that farms aren’t just sym­bols of the past, but real busi­ness­es that respond to con­sumer behav­ior and mar­kets. One exam­ple is The Bush-N-Vine, which has been a fam­i­ly-run farm for over 150 years. Since 1979, peo­ple have pur­chased local goods and fresh, sea­son­al pro­duce from their York mar­ket. As shop­ping habits changed and cus­tomers could pur­chase pro­duce, such as straw­ber­ries, year-round at super­mar­kets, the fam­i­ly farm adapt­ed. Rather than count­ing on bulk pur­chas­es in a short­er time peri­od, they extend­ed their grow­ing sea­son to meet chang­ing demands.

York County’s agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor includes fam­i­ly-owned busi­ness­es, along with a grow­ing num­ber of first-gen­er­a­tion farm­ers, includ­ing flower farms and agri­tourism des­ti­na­tions.

By sup­port­ing the busi­ness­es The Farmer’s Feed high­lights, con­sumers do much more than pur­chase food for their fam­i­lies. They keep dol­lars cir­cu­lat­ing local­ly, pro­tect land from devel­op­ment and pro­tect irre­place­able knowl­edge about grow­ing food in our soil and cli­mate.

“When you buy from small-scale farms and gen­er­a­tional busi­ness­es, you sup­port peo­ple who know and care about where you live,” Lewis says.

Lewis knows that farms oper­ate on razor thin mar­gins, and labor short­ages, ris­ing input costs and unpre­dictable weath­er add fur­ther chal­lenges. Many of the farm­ers she fea­tures must be cre­ative to con­tin­ue their business’s suc­cess, all while man­ag­ing phys­i­cal demands and every aspect that comes with run­ning a small busi­ness.

Lewis says that sup­port starts with aware­ness and inten­tion, and con­sumers can help by ask­ing ques­tions at mar­ket stands, fol­low­ing farm­ers online and attend­ing sea­son­al events.

Agri­cul­ture con­tin­ues to rely on coop­er­a­tion. Farm­ers share equip­ment, knowl­edge, labor and cus­tomers.

“Farm­ers under­stand that com­mu­ni­ty suc­cess is a shared suc­cess,” Lewis says.

That same spir­it nat­u­ral­ly aligns with elec­tric coop­er­a­tives. Farm­ers and neigh­bors came togeth­er to estab­lish elec­tric coop­er­a­tives like York Elec­tric. Today, that mis­sion goes beyond pro­vid­ing pow­er. Reli­able ser­vice and rur­al broad­band are key for York County’s farm­ing com­mu­ni­ty, impact­ing every part of these busi­ness­es, from irri­ga­tion to online sales and mar­ket­ing.

Lewis envi­sions The Farmer’s Feed as a full media plat­form that advo­cates for farm­ers across our region. Through part­ner­ships with orga­ni­za­tions like Vis­it York Coun­ty, Lewis hopes to expand con­ver­sa­tions around agri­tourism and local agriculture’s eco­nom­ic impact. Her long-term goal is sim­ple, yet mean­ing­ful: she hopes her audi­ence gains a deep­er under­stand­ing of what farm­ers con­tribute to our com­mu­ni­ties and what sup­port­ing them real­ly means.

“Strong farms build strong com­mu­ni­ties,” Lewis says. “What we choose to sup­port today defines what lasts tomor­row.”