BECOMING SHOPPERS: NC Food Consumption and Production

The state of North Carolina was determined to improve the lives of its farmers and make its agricultural products more competitive in the national market. Many people felt that North Carolina's farmers first needed to improve their farming practices. Instead of relying on the same traditional farming techniques used by their father's father's father (and so forth) state leaders hoped that farmers would start using new methods based on rigorous scientific experimentation. In 1887, the North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts—now called North Carolina State University, or NC State for short—was founded. The mission of this new school was to be the center of agricultural knowledge in North Carolina.

Beginning almost as soon as it opened its doors, the school began sending people across the state to educate farmers and their families about how to produce and eat food. They participated in county and state fairs, they put on demonstrations, and held training seminars.

The school had already been educating the North Carolina citizenry for almost fifteen years when the national Extension Service program was started. Under this program, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) would cooperate with agricultural and mechanical state schools to send agents out across the country to teach rural families new information about agriculture and home economics.

The North Carolina Agricultural Extension Service sent out two types of agents: farm demonstration agents (who were almost always male and who taught farmers about how to grow foods) and home demonstration agents (who were almost always female and who taught women about how to cook, preserve, and shop for food).

The female home demonstration agents focused on two things during the 1910s and 1920s: nutrition and food preservation. Many North Carolinians at the time suffered from very bad nutrition. This was largely due to the fact that people knew very little about vitamins and the different food groups. Fatty foods were thought to "make the body warm," and little concern was given to the negative effects of sugar. Also, foods spoiled very quickly because most families did not have refrigerators or freezers, and the main method of preservation left to families, canning, was very difficult to do safely.

Home demonstration agents thus focused their attentions on lower-income, rural families. During this time (and several decades to follow) the Extension Service operated as a racially segregated organization. African American agents went into African American communities, and white agents went into white communities. White agents were based at NC State, which had the most funds and resources for agricultural experimentation, and African American agents were based at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University—or NC A & T—which was the state's black agricultural and technical school during segregation. Although both branches were active, white Extension agents had the benefit of better funds and more institutional support.