North Carolina farmers deserve the full story on Oxfam

Last week, NC State’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences published new research showing that agriculture continues to be the backbone of our state’s economy, generating more than $117 billion in total statewide economic impact.

North Carolina has been ranked in the top two of CNBC’s Top States For Business for the last six consecutive years, including holding the No. 1 spot in both 2025 and 2023. North Carolina knows that agriculture is the backbone of our state’s economy. Unfortunately, fewer than 60 days out from the Nov. 3 election, out-of-state activists are trying to undermine the strength of our economy, workforce, and the farm communities and families that feed and support them, to gin up publicity and turnout for antiagriculture, antibusiness voices that seek to undermine N.C.’s long-term economic competitiveness, especially in our agricultural sector.

Oxfam America, a global left-wing activist group, issued a report labeling North Carolina as the worst state in the country for workers.

Oxfam itself describes its rankings as one of the “flagship” research products in its progressive advocacy work. The report measures 37 labor policies and says it is intended to provide policymakers with a “roadmap” and models for state and federal action. Among the policies it rewards are extending minimum-wage and workers’ compensation requirements to farmworkers, collective bargaining for agricultural workers and repeal of right-to-work laws.

Oxfam’s record speaks for itself. It has directly attacked American farmers and once published a broadside against the American Farm Bureau Federation under the headline, “Can the Farm Bureau get over itself?” Oxfam attacked the Farm Bureau for opposing a federal budget proposal that would have shifted a larger share of America’s international food aid purchases away from American farmers, allowing more of those dollars to flow to foreign producers instead.

Oxfam’s agenda also extends to pushing to abolish fossil fuels and calling for the United States to rapidly phase them out.

That context is largely missing from the coverage Oxfam receives. CBS 17 in Raleigh turned to Braxton Winston, North Carolina AFL-CIO president and a failed 2024 candidate for Labor commissioner, as its principal outside voice on the report without offering a corresponding perspective from a farmer, employer or business organization.

WCCB TV in Charlotte went further, using Oxfam’s ranking as the backdrop for a story about organized labor launching a statewide voter-turnout campaign, with union bosses preparing to knock on doors ahead of the November election.

In both cases, readers receive little in the way of facts needed to understand that Oxfam’s rankings reflect a clear antiagriculture and antibusiness policy agenda. The media’s coverage around Oxfam’s annual “report” treats its advocacy as objective economic analysis and gives activist organizations free publicity without giving readers the broader facts necessary to properly judge the group’s claims for themselves.

North Carolina should remember what is at stake. Agriculture and its related sectors support roughly 1 million jobs, one in every five in our state. Together, they contribute more than $117 billion to North Carolina’s economy, according to a recent analysis from NC State University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

The extreme policies pushed by groups like Oxfam and its allies would devastate North Carolina farms and rural communities already struggling with rising costs and global trade uncertainty. With Election Day approaching on Nov. 3, voters should look past tilted headlines and carefully examine where candidates stand on the issues most affecting North Carolina’s economy. When North Carolina farmers and farm communities turn out to vote, they send a message Raleigh and Washington, D.C., cannot afford to ignore.

Adam Caldwell is executive director of the NC Ag Partnership, a policy and advocacy organization representing farmers, agribusiness and allied partners across North Carolina.