Featured Image
A calf lies in a field of spring flowers near the Haystacks area of Morehead City in Carteret County. Photo: Dylan Ray
Supporter Spotlight
Carteret had 22 farms raising cattle and calves mostly for beef production, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 2022 county-by-county farm census, up by three from the 2017 count. The 2022 figure accounted for about 400 head of cattle.
Among coastal counties, Onslow leads in the number of cattle farms with 84 and about 1,900 head in 2022, down from 95 farms and nearly 2,100 head in 2017.
North Carolina had nearly 15,000 cattle farms in 2022 with just shy of 719,000 head, down from more than 18,000 farms and more than 776,000 cattle in 2017, but numbers rebounded last year to about 750,000 head, according to a 2024 USDA document.
By comparison, the state held steady at around 2,400 hog farms during the 2017-25 period, but the hog inventory during the 2022 census had decreased by about 700,000 from about 8.9 million in 2017.
About 32.3 million hogs were sold in 2022, compared to just over 11,300 cattle and calves sold that year.
