With hundreds of farms, Pender County is known for agriculture. Around 14% of the county's land area is farmland.
While farmland loss has emerged as a looming issue, much of Pender County is still defined by its agricultural industry. If you drive much more inland than Hampstead, this quickly becomes apparent from the large swaths of farmland you'll come across.
Whether it's corn stalks or blueberry bushes, there's something being grown pretty much everywhere. But what is Pender County growing the most of?
What are the most-grown crops in Pender County?
According to the Pender County office of the N.C. State Cooperative Extension, Pender County has 78,903 acres of farmland, around 38,500 of which are cropland.
When it comes to pure production,
corn reigns supreme. Pender County harvested 14,800 acres of corn for grain in 2024, amounting to 2,137,000 bushels.
A bushel is a standard measure of volume equivalent to around 9.3 gallons. However, weight can be a much more important measure of a crop's yield, and this differs depending on the crop. For corn, a bushel weighs around 56 pounds, putting Pender County's 2024 yield at nearly 120 million pounds of corn.
Just behind corn are soybeans, of which Pender County grew 14,600 acres. But soybeans produce less yield per acre.
Big on blueberries
While corn and soybeans are the largest crops by volume, some might not consider them the county's most important. Pender County has a reputation for blueberry farming. It's home to the annual N.C. Blueberry Festival, after all. It's the second largest producer of blueberries in the state and the seventh largest in the country, according to the cooperative extension.
Livestock
Livestock is also an important piece of Pender County's agricultural industry, including cattle, turkeys and hogs.
Pender County had around 250,000 hogs in 2025, which came out to the eighth most out of all N.C. counties. While Pender also had quite a bit of broilers -- chickens raised for meat -- and turkeys, it wasn't among the state's biggest producers for either.
Charlie Kingree is the Pender County and trending topics reporter for the StarNews. He can be reached at ckingree@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: What's grown in Pender County? It's 7th in the nation for one crop
