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. Christmas trees don’t come from forests. Instead they are grown and harvested in farms. There are close to 15,000 farms growing Christmas trees across the 50 states, with approximately 350 million trees growing on them, according to the National Christmas Tree Association. U.S. tree farms cut about 15 million Christmas trees in 2022 , the latest year data was available. Three states — Michigan, North Carolina and Oregon — have the most acres of Christmas tree farms. Christmas tree farms across the country cover 266,964 acres of land, according to the most-recent USDA data. That’s close to 417 square miles, or a little less than half the land area of Rhode Island. Challenges to Christmas tree farms span from coast to coast. Drought has wilted crops in Oregon, while wind, flood and landslides caused by September’s Hurricane Helene dented North Carolina’s tree production. “It was definitely difficult,” Joe Freeman, owner of the Mistletoe Meadows tree farm in North Carolina’s Laurel Springs, said about the hurricane. “It was a lot of extra work there the first couple of weeks going into our season. But we saw a lot of support in the community.” In North Carolina’s Ashe County — one of the top tree-producing areas in the country — most of the damage was to buildings and farm supplies. The actual Christmas trees, which are often kept indoors as seedlings and grow on high-altitude […]