In the News
WFAE 90.7 Charlotte NPR News
North Carolina is home to more than 150,000 farmworkers — but only one in five have health care. Cirlo Castillo is one of them.
Castillo is in the middle of his 24th season at Hart-T-Tree Farms near the Virginia border. As farm manager, he looks after the trees and the other workers. He’s participating in a new health care program between the farm owners and a local health care practice in Ashe County.
“To be part of the program is to know what one has, to know if I am really sick or have some sort of illness and to know what I need to be healthy,” Castillo said.
The farm covers the $55 membership fee for all of the workers at the farm to join Elevation Health, the local primary care practice. Now in its second year, the partnership grants the workers, who are mostly from Mexico and working in North Carolina on temporary visas, something rare: access to regular healthcare.
Spectrum News North Carolina
Local author and illustrator, Anna Welsh, and Hart-T-Tree Farms owner Carrie McClain talk about the Little Sap Anna gifted her friends, how it survived Hurricane Helene, and why that inspired her to write a children's book.
North Carolina Farm Life Fall 2025
HART-T-TREE FARMS was established in 1976 by John and Kathy Chefas. The company began in Hart, Michigan, but in the mid-1980s, the farm relocated to Grassy Creek in Ashe County. There, they began producing Fraser firs, much sought after as Christmas trees. Today, the farm is managed by John and Kathy’s daughter, Carrie McClain, and her husband, Jeff. Carrie McClain said Fraser firs — which Christmas tree farmers have been growing commercially in North Carolina since the 1950s — are native to the Southern Appalachian Mountains and sought after by consumers because “it’s an excellent, amazing Christmas tree.”
NBC News
Christmas tree farms face new perils
From farms in Oregon to those in North Carolina, a lineup of obstacles face the industry: labor, tree disease and climate and land use.
The Christmas tree industry just can’t catch a break.
The industry — a collection of tree farmers and sellers across the country — has only just emerged from supply shortages dating to the 2008 financial crisis. But right as they’ve started to find firmer footing, Christmas tree farms are staring down a new set of dangers, including climate change-fueled weather disasters and a shifting labor market.
“If we could not grow Fraser fir Christmas trees in North Carolina, we would not have a Christmas tree industry in North Carolina,” said Carrie McClain, president of the Ashe County Christmas Tree Association and a co-owner of Hart-T-Tree Farms.
WBTV Charlotte
Carrie McClain talks about the impact of Helene on the local tourist economy and encourages North Carolinians to come visit the Choose & Cut farms in Ashe County.
The Center Square
About a week or so after Election Day every year, the aroma in the cool air begins to change downtown in the 1,300-population community of West Jefferson in the North Carolina mountains.
There’s really nothing quite like it in a town at 3,000 feet above sea level that draws tourists with a love of arts and cheeses. Amid the catastrophic devastation of Hurricane Helene, there is some good news coming from the High Country.
“It is still too soon to connect with farmers in the hardest hit areas of the western region,” Carrie McClain, CEO of Hart-T-Tree Farms in Ashe County, told The Center Square. “The infrastructure is devastated.
“Driving around and talking to some, it does not look like Christmas trees were damaged. There was some flooding in fields and a few growers have reported damage to seedlings and nurseries. The biggest concern for some growers will be road access – “Can I get the trees out of the field.” But I think the majority will be able to get their trees out.”
Ag in NC Podcast
Carrie Chefas McClain is the CEO of Hart-T-Tree Farms and tells us all about Hart-T-Tree Farms and growing Christms trees. Carrie: “The Fraser fir saved a lot of family farms here in western North Carolina. I am passionate about telling its story.”