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11th Annual Orange County Agricultural Summit
The 11th Annual Orange County Agricultural Summit was held February 9th in Hillsborough. A crowd of farmers, interested public, and elected officials gathered to hear presentations on farm-related topics, as well as updates on ongoing projects. The event ended with a locally grown lunch of pork barbeque and beef meatloaf, sweet potatoes, collards, hush puppies, salad, and apple cobbler with Maple View ice cream. And the county’s recycling department kept the event waste-free!
Many common themes emerged as the speakers presented information on the different aspects of agriculture: Orange County has a great local food system, and many plans in the works will strengthen it further. Agriculture, in addition to being a large source of income in our state, is a steady source. And there are many creative ways for farmers to improve their farms and make extra money.
Youth and Agriculture
The summit began with presentations about Youth and Agriculture. Orange County Schools Superintendent Patrick Rhodes attested to the county’s long tradition of supporting agriculture through hands-on classes. Children might live in a subdivision, but they can still have a farm-related experience in school, even raising animals on campus. Ag classes range from ag science and ag business to farm-related trades—last year, the schools produced 52 certified welders! Several members of the Cedar Ridge High School FFA Program (Future Farmers of America) talked about their meetings, stressing the leadership skills gained by membership in FFA, which has hundreds of members.
Robin Roper of Wake Forest spoke about her son Powell’s entrepreneurial farming that began when he was 14. (Powell was ill and could not be present.) Without the transportation he’d need from their rural home to find work elsewhere, he “assessed his assets” (land, a dad with farming knowledge, a Farmers’ Market, and a growing customer base) and decided to try farming. He partnered with his neighbor Victoria, at first growing only heirloom tomatoes and twenty kinds of peppers. Now 19, Powell’s a freshman at NC State and still farming. Robin went over some of the important lessons they’ve learned: understanding the full range of costs, researching the products that people want that are currently unavailable at the Farmers’ Market, and developing relationships with customers who become regulars. “People like to buy from young people,” she noted at the end, encouraging other young farmers in the audience.
Agriculture in NC
Steve Troxler, the NC Commissioner of Agriculture, spoke about the importance of agriculture to our state, especially given the current economy. Agriculture provides $70 billion of our state’s income and remains steady as other sources fluctuate. While development means loss of farmland (a million acres since 2000), it also means new mouths to feed; newcomers should be won over to the idea of eating local food. The Commissioner’s office runs the “Got to be NC” program that brands NC products in chain grocery stores; the program has won several marketing awards. Steve also noted the success of our state in exporting sweet potatoes to Europe and hogs and poultry to Asia.
Important plans for the future include securing funding for agricultural research, which Steve sees as key given the increase in food needed as our population grows; making it economically feasible for young people to farm; helping farmers with marketing, now a key part of a successful operation; and researching biofuels as an opportunity for NC to produce its own fuel. Steve also talked about the food safety aspect of his job: when a crisis occurs, his office identifies the problem, mitigates the danger, and then works to restore public confidence. (After a tomato salmonella-scare proved groundless, he ate five tomato sandwiches on TV.)
PLANT @ Breeze Farm
Karen Adams from the Orange County Cooperative Extension gave an update on the Breeze Farm, 270 acres north of Hillsborough that the Breeze family donated to NC State for use in sustainable agriculture research. For the second year, several county offices have partnered to run People Learning Agriculture Now for Tomorrow (PLANT), a series of farming workshops that culminate with students farming at the Breeze Farm. (http://www.orangecountyfarms.org/PLANTatBreeze.asp) Other activities at the farm last year included a fencing demonstration, a demonstration about no-till cover crops, and some open house events including a graduation for the PLANT class. This year the farm will be on the Piedmont Farm Tour in April, host a “farm to fork” fund-raiser featuring local chefs in June, and host an open house in early summer when this year’s crop of PLANT students gets their rows planted. Karen also thanked Weaver Street Market for fund-raising to buy a tractor for the program, and mentioned the office’s new form designed to help pair up land-owners who need farmers and new farmers in search of land.
Retiring Farmers, Saving the Farm
The next speaker addressed this final issue further: Andrew Brannan from the NC Farm Transition Network spoke about all the organizations and teams working on helping land stay in production as farmers retire. He highlighted three programs: “Planning the future of your farm,” an education program with a workbook that helps farm families begin discussing the future of their land; “Land link,” an online network of resources about land opportunities and more; and “Rural Lands Update,” an education program for attorneys and other practitioners that brings them up-to-date on laws and taxes applicable to farms and make them more useful to farmers in need. (http://www.ncftn.org/)
Value Added Projects
Dan Ingle gave an update on the Value-Added Center, a joint project of four counties to provide farmers with a certified kitchen facility where they can “add value” to their products (e.g., by turning fruit to jam) to compete with non-local producers. This center will provide a crucial missing link in our local food chain. In the past six months, $861,000 has been raised; the project needs $350,000 more. The center plans to open in 2010 as a nonprofit and run sustainably off of user fees.
Allison Nichols spoke about the new Maple View Agriculture Center, set to open in April. She’s partnering with Robert Nutter of Maple View Farm to open the center, which will be located near the barn at Maple View Dairy. Allison (whose degree is in education) and her mom (a former teacher) are designing a program in line with the NC science curriculum. The center has four classrooms with different themes: plants, crops, and nutrition; soil science; animals; and insects, weather, lifecycles, compost, and more. On 23 acres outside are a vegetable garden, a “North Carolina garden” (with cotton, peanuts, etc.), herbs, flowers, fruit trees, a special display garden illustrating “where does food come from?” and how to garden at home, a barnyard, hayrides, a pumpkin patch, and a picnic and play area. The Center will welcome visiting school groups; visitors will be able to milk a cow! The Center’s founders hope that after visiting, children will encourage their parents to have a garden and buy local products.
Organic NC Wheat
Roland McReynolds of the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (CFSA) introduced the next speaker, Kenny Haines, an organic grain grower from eastern NC. Roland mentioned the CFSA’s new wheat program—assisting the growing and milling of organic wheat in North Carolina for use in local bakeries—and a conference on organic grain coming up next January. There are now types of wheat suitable for planting in the humid southeast that produce flour good enough for bread. To read more about the CFSA project visit their website (http://www.carolinafarmstewards.org/).
Kenny Haines got a degree in agricultural engineering and worked as a supervisor on a corporate farm until 30 years ago, when he began growing organic wheat and other crops in NC. He began by getting seeds that would work in this area, sending test batches to Joe Lindley at Lindley Mill to analyze, and then planting the varieties that Joe could use for bread flour. Kenny talked about many aspects of the process: communicating properly with buyers (does “I want a lot” mean a ten pound bag, or a tractor trailer full?), storage (wheat is stored from June to September, but corn comes along in August...), seeds (he’s become a dealer because organic seeds were too hard to find), fertilizer, tillage equipment, planting, and weed and pest control. When he rents a combine for harvesting, he has to thoroughly clean it to protect the organic nature of his product; he even purges it with organic grain (which he then sells as conventional). Rented storage bins and hauling trucks also have to be cleaned, so Kenny’s farm has bought their own to avoid the hassle.
Farming organically, Kenny has learned many tricks. He keeps buffer regions between his land and his neighbor’s—he signed his buffer regions up for a special wildlife program so he won’t have to keep records about what he does with them. In addition to the buffers, he plants his corn at different times to avoid cross-pollination with the neighbor’s genetically modified Bt corn. He used a “land planer” to even out his fields, removing wet and dry spots that are stressful to plants, and he plants in raised beds with ditches to help drainage.
He “plants heavy” to stop weeds and avoid the need for herbicide. He weeds by tilling the ground around the seeds, tilling before he sees weeds—the weed roots are there and easily killed with tilling. His neighbors who spray pesticides end up with a huge chemical bill, and they still have weeds—there are now 20 weeds resistant to Roundup. Of weeding with his tractor, Kenny says, “I never had a weed develop a resistance to cold hard steel.”
Every year is different. By paying attention to the fields and weather, Kenny makes the right decisions for how to care for each crop, sometimes even abandoning one: during a recent drought year, his soybeans were struggling, so he gave up on them and planted milo, a grain that likes it dry. “Don’t be a ‘windshield farmer,” Kenny advised. You have to get your hands dirty, scratch in the dirt, and anticipate problems.
Direct Marketing
After a break, Bailey Newton of Triple B Farms spoke about direct marketing of beef. Early on he didn’t do well at market, and he’d return product to the freezer, eventually just eating it himself when it started to look bad. He realized the product needed to look better, so he started pulling a freezer trailer with him, to minimize the impact of going to market on the packaged product. The trailer also had a display about his product—buyers want to know about their meat, and the seller needs to be able to answer their questions. As he developed a customer base, Bailey learned which products to bring to market. Bailey attributes some of the increase in sales to free advertising on websites like Eat Well Guide (http://www.eatwellguide.org/) and Local Harvest (www.localharvest.org/).
Sustainable Farming and Health
The Director of UNC’s Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, Dr. Alice Ammerman spoke about a new study of the link between sustainable farming and health. The Center has looked at how aspects of our food system contribute to health problems like obesity, chronic disease, and hunger. For example, it is harder for many people to get fresh, affordable, healthy food than it used to be; people are now used to cheap food and don’t want to pay the prices that healthy food costs; and people don’t know how to prepare fresh food. She also mentioned the “toxic environment” in which we live: for example, a 1991 car had no cup holder, while this year’s version has 15 places for cups, and the cup holders have actually grown larger to accommodate the super-sized drinks now available. There are even food snacks that come in cup-shaped containers so they can be eaten easily in the car.
The aims of the new study include documenting “what works” in agricultural transition to sustainable farming, the environmental and nutritional impacts of sustainable farming, an economic analysis to show that local farming is a viable alternative, and a policy analysis to find the best approach to policy change. It’s hoped that the study will help sustainable farming spread. A February article in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggested the current economic crisis could be an opportunity for our country to begin solving the problem of obesity, by revitalizing family farms and community distribution systems, planting community gardens, re-instituting fully-functional school kitchens that serve healthy food, and promoting active lifestyles.
Briefs and Updates
As the lunch hour neared, the final speakers gave short updates about their programs. Kent Davis of Carolina Farm Credit spoke on the status of getting loans for agriculture, which is good in spite of the economy. Since 1954 when they paid back all government funds, Carolina Farm Credit has been a co-op instead of a federal land bank. This means that customers who take out loans are paid back money if the co-op makes a profit, and in 2008, they made a profit of 24 million with a return on assets above the national average.
Steve Harris of the company Modux spoke of an interesting way for farmers with land (at least 50 acres) to make extra money: by leasing it to a local hunting club. Hunting clubs will pay to hunt on land and will even take care of it—fixing up barns, clearing bushes, or planting. This can help absentee farmers whose lands are overgrown or have trespasser problems. Tobias Fullwood of USDA Rural Development spoke about project grants to help farmers install renewable energy systems on their land. This is part of the Rural Energy for America Program, section 9007 of the 2007 farm bill. Having the system gives the farm a tax break, and farmers can sell extra energy that’s generated back to the grid through NC Greenpower. Eligible projects must be in a rural area, commercially available, feasible, and maintainable with the farm’s revenue.
Sue Gray of the NC Horse Council defended the status of horse farms as legitimate farms. In NC the laws and definitions are inclusive: a horse is considered livestock and defined as part of agriculture when used for “growth and production.” Sue argued that training a horse is part of “growth.” She pointed out the crops, veterinarian services, and farm equipment sales supported by horse farms, of which NC now has 65,000. Finally, David Stancil gave an update on land conservation. Many new farms have been added in the past year; 1250 acres are now permanently protected, and 40 more farms are interested in the program.
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