Can We Get A Farming Community Subdivision?

Anybody know what an “agrihood” is?

If you do, would you expect to see on in Lexington any time soon?

It has long been known that the best place to build a subdivision is also the best location for farming but seldom have the two uses successfully coexisted, much less symbiotically, in American cities. In Central Kentucky, the historical trend has been to clear an agricultural property of all vestiges of its previous use, then name the development for what used to be there. To do otherwise goes against all rules of subdivision design and development. Agrihoods bend those rules into the symbiotic relationship of pioneer days.

They seem to be a growing item in other parts of the country. One of the latest agrihoods, Willowsford, is being planned in northern Virginia and will include about 2,130 units plus 2,000 acres of open space. 300 of those open space acres will be reserved for the cultivation of fruit, vegetables, chickens, and goats.

You could look at this as similar to a subdivision built around a golf course. Think Andover or Griffin Gate, where the links were built first and the prime housing units looked out onto the fairway or the 18^th green. In this case, the view over the back fence is of a tilled field in the community farm. Instead of golf, the amenity which draws these homeowners is the benefit of fresh food within walking distance. Their own CSA or farmers market in the backyard where they can participate or not.

Developers are counting on fresh veggies to tempt retired baby boomers looking to eat local and parents intent on nurturing children on organic meals. DMB has integrated produce fields and edible gardens into their projects in Arizona, California, and Hawaii. I cannot see Ball Homes doing such a concept here, but why not build our community one farm at a time?

Agrihoods have been around since the 1980s with the 359-home Prairie Crossing development being a widely acclaimed conservation community in Grayslake, Illinois outside Chicago. The Prairie Crossing Farm with its working organic farm, was one of the first parts of the community to be established and remains at its heart. 

Will agrihoods be affordable housing for the Millennial who is looking for the walkable, vibrant city life that we generally of as downtown? Maybe not. Willowsford’s farm, in northern Virginia, runs at a deficit for now but is expected to break even by about 2018 as more residents, local restaurants, and markets purchase its food. Housing units are running about $6K+ at this time and only about 500 are built. This can still be considered sprawl despite having two community centers with demonstration kitchens for wine tastings, culinary classes or pop-up restaurants.

Do you ever wonder just how many of the residents actually join to play golf at those country club type communities? My personal feeling is that the number is not that high. I find the thought of living adjacent to a working farm, with its aromas and activities, far more alluring than being on a golf course with its errant projectiles and chemical grooming methods. Establishing and maintaining a community farm can run about 20% as much as doing the same with a golf course.

The key to correctly maintaining a good golf community is finding and retaining a qualified golf professional. Likewise, having a knowledgeable farmer, willing to assist the community's residents and follow sustainable farming practices, will go a long away toward success. I suppose that an agrihood could be branded as a ”Kentucky Proud” community just as well as a golf course community on a PGA Tour.

Eastern Kentucky's Agricultural Box

Last week, in an op-ed to the local paper, Bill Best wrote “When articles are written about Appalachia, the most frequently left-out words are "gardening" and "agriculture." Yet Eastern Kentucky was once self-sufficient in food production and could easily be again.” As true as that wording is, it is difficult to conceive that most people don't think that way at all. 

I have never thought of Eastern Kentucky as a hot bed of food production but the hill folk, from the settlers on forward had to feed themselves some way. I can also relate first hand that there are many fine cooks who have made their way out of the hills. Eastern Kentuckians have survived of much more that coal jobs.

There has been a lot of talks lately about what could or should be done to aide in the relief of the region's economic problems, but they all seem to center on incentives or developments which are generally better suited to urbanized areas. A large industrial park or an outlet mall style shopping center need both population density and transportation access to be successful. These are items that the area lacks.

While progress has been made in reclaiming many a strip mine site and the coal companies conducting “mountain top removal” are required to put things back to as “natural” as they can, preparing the land for agricultural production is not on anybody's radar. Neither the coal company's nor the local's, since Eastern Kentucky is not a “farming” area.

Best points out, correctly, that the necessary skill sets are not being handed down from the grandparents, who eked out a living on poor land, or the parents, many of whom could not wait to leave the area, or the education community, which is preparing our youth for global competition. The idea that having a place to call home and having it be able to sustain its residents simply escapes many of us these days.

If east coast investors were the foundation of the coal companies that caused such damage, could it be farm investors that will begin the turn around? A Lexington based company, American Farm Investors, has been purchasing farm properties in Central Kentucky, then utilizing Kentucky farmers and selling grain to Kentucky end-users. What would prevent a similar group of investors from making agricultural land out of reclaimed land?

It may be time to redefine the box that is the concept of Eastern Kentucky agriculture.

The British Can Admit It - Will We?

Major food price rises are all but inevitable. Philip Clarke, the chief executive of Britain's biggest supermarket chain Tesco, has admitted as much to the British press. Tesco, was heavily implicated in the recent horse-meat scandal, has said that rising global demand means the historic low prices to which British consumers have become used are now unsustainable. This is tantamount to the CEO of WalMart or Kroger admitting that they can no longer commit to keeping prices low for all Americans.

Any one who has been shopping lately can attest to the fact that the “invisible grocery shrink ray” is at work in our local markets. The packages may be rising slowly in price but the quantity in the package is smaller over all. The organics and locally grown stuff is characterized as for the elite and other who want to be upper class.

Is Kentucky (or America) that far behind this time? A recent poll, commissioned by the Prince's Countryside Fund to mark National Countryside Week, reveals that a majority of British consumers would be prepared to pay more for food if they knew the extra was going to farmers rather than to supermarket shareholders. With the recent introduction of the “Udderly Kentucky” milk program by the Secretary of Agriculture, James Comer, is he seeing the same sentiment from Kentucky shoppers?

The “Buy Local First” movement seems to be making headway and local farmers markets are establishing themselves in more locations every year. Still, the primary comments are that they are out of the reach of many residents. Sadly, such costs are reflective of the unsubsidized production costs for local entrepreneurs.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization forecast last month that global food prices could rise by as much as 40% over the next decade. Much of this as a result of a growing middle class in countries such as China and India. With the prospects of America's middle class waning and poverty moving to our once booming suburbs, this global rise will hit Americans very hard.

Usually, supermarket bosses (British and American) have proved extremely resistant to admitting economic pressures would affect the cost of groceries. WalMart has recently committed to its sourcing more locally produced fruits and vegetables without discussing whether price differences will be kept to a minimum. One way the WalMart has kept their prices low is to require the producer (or middleman) to do more preparatory work so that their “associates” don't have to.

What comes to mind next is WalMart's (and possibly the federal governments) definition of locally produced. Generally, the range of 500 miles is sufficient for most programs and for Lexington that means as far away as Central Michigan or the Gulf Coast. Local could them mean about 2/3^rds of the Eastern U.S. National brands and the monoculture farming of agri-business can still dominate our food choices at that rate.

I can see that a growing number of Kentuckians (and Americans) are awakening to the reality that many of our corporations are (and have been) leading us astray with phrases like “supermarket to the world” while importing more and more under “trade” treaties. With all of our corporate farming debacles, many countries will not accept our exports for reasons like GMO's or processing concerns.

America's food system has become unsustainable and there is more than enough blame to cast in all directions. The big question is, can it be turned around in time to prevent it from crashing like a house of cards?

Larger stores and bigger selections may have helped get us to where we are but simply reversing those trends will not be a solution. Our seasonal treats of yesteryear have become the culinary mainstays of the declining middle class. Farmers who took great pride in their goods on the farm now see disease and pestilence introduced in the processing and packaging plants. Corporate marketing gurus have persuaded us that only the perfect looking fruit or vegetable is worthy of purchase. These trends also need to be altered.

The way it is major food price rises are all but inevitable, which leaves us with only one good option – to change the way it is.

Continuing Thoughts

“I don't think the city really cares about food issues.”

Danny Mayer of North of Center

I, on the other hand, am sure that this city's residents do not feel that there are any real food issues to care about. As a whole, this city believes that food availability will be provided as it has through history, yet history is a poor prognosticator of future events.

Reading further in Danny's comments, it becomes crystal clear that he is wanting some action from out City government to compel food production for the poor or, at least, publicly purchased food to be distributed at little or no cost to the poor. I find this to be against even our Founding Fathers' concepts for our country.

I know that people in Lexington do not concern themselves with the possible long-term effects of global warming/climate change or the idea of Peak Oil. Private enterprise has always solved these problems and will do so again – but at what cost and to whom? It is what they think that our country was founded upon.

Private enterprise in America at the time of the Revolution was of the small, family owned variety and not the large multi-national corporations of today, especially when it came to food production. Government saw no need to force or limit food production until the large corporations got into the act. What was necessary was the freedom of farmers to farm and production was naturally limited by what they could sell. Frugal farmers would not expend the energy to produce more than a small portion above that distributed.

Today, our small, family owned farms are producing more than enough for themselves and a growing following of CSA members and loyal, farmers market enthusiasts. Many of them do it organically or with a minimum of chemical additives. Most of this food is priced accordingly and above corporately produced food. Most obvious of all is that these small farms cannot feed all of Lexington, regardless of ability to pay.

During the Second World War, small backyard and neighborhood “Victory” gardens were touted as a way to aide the war effort and stave off starvation. That time also saw the wide-spread use of family owned neighborhood grocers. It may well be that these two elements were the vital parts which enabled the country to get through that time. I worry what will happen if there is a next time, when these elements are missing.

I see some opportunities to create some of these neighborhood gardening locations (without impinging on public parkland) and locating some “pop-up” style markets within short reach of our residential areas. I think that more opportunities need to be thought of and allowed.

Now is the time to prepare. I do not think that we are prepared so I can only echo Danny. 

“I don't think the city (or the country) really cares about food issues.”

Urban Food Thoughts

Neal Pierce had an excellent piece of the subject of local food and the rise of cities this past Sunday.

We think of hunger – global hunger – as a third world problem yet of the millions who go to bed hungry each night, more and more of them are in cities. The bigger the city, the bigger the number of unfed.

As Pierce points out, over the next 40 years our planet will have to produce as much food as we have ever produced and I, for one, am worried about its quality. I am also reasonably sure that a majority of it will not be local food.

Cities, by their very nature, develop in the same locations and utilize the same type of land which is ideal to grow food crops. As cities grow they expand across the very land which they may need to feed themselves, devouring acre after acre in non-agricultural and resource consuming urban development.

There are those who stress that cities are where brilliant minds are more likely to intersect with others of like bent and innovations can spring forth. So, where are we going to find the innovations for feeding our ever growing urban areas? The University of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Urban Research recently held a “Feeding Cities” conference looking for answers.

Historically, with all of our cities swallowing up so much fertile farm land and creating climate altering “heat islands” in the process, our family farms have been evolving into massive industrial operations which are highly susceptible to floods and droughts. Scientists say that the altering climate will see many more of these floods and droughts. Did this conference have any good answers?

One suggestion was that cities can try to toughen themselves by assembling disaster emergency funds, strengthening their infrastructure and building their resilience. WOW – whose idea was this? When we cannot even maintain our pension funds or our roads, bridges and sewers adequately we need to establish a massive rainy day fund (which will probably be blown on the first event)? Not my idea of a complete solution.

Other conferees stressed the preservation of land for agriculture, either within their borders or in surrounding regions, apparently similar to our Rural Service Area (RSA). Lexington has already done that but the majority of crops being grown in the RSA will not feed our local population, since we don’t eat horses. Some conferees saw this as a food buffer and a flood buffer – two public goods, but our experience may say otherwise. In a free market no one can tell the farm owners to actually grow food for people and not commodity crops or inedible animals.

It was mentioned that fending off powerful business or political forces to preserve agricultural lands may be a tremendously difficult task. From gated communities and golf courses to the starter homes evolving into suburban slums amid a food desert, Lexington needs to think about better access to local food production on what remaining land we have.

In the developing third world nations it is estimated that 40% of the food produced annually is lost due to improper storage or delivery systems. Yet, in America we waste nearly 650 pounds per person a year, more than any other country in the world. The losses by careless farming, inefficient food processing or from retail stores simply discarding foods that are past their sell-by dates probably trail our own personal inability to control what we buy and fail to eat. It hurts me to see what remains from many restaurant meals and I don’t see what is discarded from the kitchens themselves.

Did we always have this waste? Could we feed all of the estimated 9 billion people anticipated by 2050 with more local production and less transportation related product spoilage? There is a joy to greater self-sufficiency and local food production which Lexington is beginning to understand, yet we still fail to create real community gardens in our communities. I get the feeling that community gardens are thought to be only for the poorer sections of town. The HOA where I live will only allow a few tomato or pepper plants in pots and less obvious herbs.

Pierce concludes his article with this: 

“To date, city-produced foods account for a tiny share of urban food needs. But one is led to wonder: If city food demand is a top 21st-century concern, perhaps city ingenuity – and spirit – can also help to forge answers.”

For Lexington, those answers are not forthcoming. Nor do they seem to be in other larger communities, since Pierce is still looking for them. That would indicate that we have not achieved a critical mass of intersecting thinkers on this part of Lexington's problem – though there are a handful of pioneers.

That Lexington developed, in part, where crops are known to do well and parts of that development has proven to be a detriment to the whole, just may be a hint toward an answer.

Over the last decade or so, our city has purchased property which was adversely affected or, by its placement, caused that adverse affect on others. Said property has neither been re-purposed for suitable urban use nor been reverted to the other job for which the land is quite well suited – growing food crops.

Do some of these properties fall within an area which can be called a “food desert” or could become one should the nation's transportation costs skyrocket? Could producing healthier food closer to the mouths which need it help? Could production of such food be coordinated under the auspices of a “Local Foods Policy Advisory Group” go a long way in averting urban hunger? Maybe.

Even More On Kentucky Proud

How many of us local folks (those who grew up here in Lexington) have had the impression that the tobacco industry and the thoroughbred horse industry were the two mainstays of Lexington's economy?

Since I was a small lad, the annual Blue Grass Review, a section of a January Herald – Leader Sunday edition, made grand statements and projections about all of the recent sales or the upcoming season for both industries. These were can't miss fields to be in.

Therefore, I was quite surprised to see this clipping from the June 30, 1938 Lexington paper:

In 1888, the largest crop grown in this county was hemp.

Twenty-four percent of the world's output was produced here.

Now we grow only about forty acres of hemp. Formerly the hemp house was as much a part of the farm equipment as the dairy or the stable. Now, the hemp house has given away to the larger tobacco barn and the horse barns.

In 40 years and two significant wars, Fayette County would abdicate its place as a world leader of beneficial raw goods and replace it with products associated with vice and addiction. Yes, I do know that local farmers have been raising horses and racing horses since before the Civil War but horses were not the only line of work. The modern thoroughbred operation of today began with the introduction of corporate style funding (syndicates and the like).

Hemp, basically a weed, is about as easy to grow as hay or sod and without the extensive level land requirement. The hard part is in the harvesting and processing of the fibers. Did it make a lot of sense to switch to tobacco, a much more labor intensive production process and susceptible to more blights or diseases?

The decline in production may have its roots in the The Marihuana Tax Act Of 1937, which did not directly outlaw the growing of hemp but put a tax on every entity who dealt with the raw material. Although the tax was just $1 a year in most cases, the penalties of not registering and paying were substantial.

Given the quote from the newspaper account, the tax was be placed on a sizable number of Fayette County farmers during a time when they were trying to climb out of the Great Depression. Not a good economic move there Congress.

There may be some defense for Congress since it was thought, at the time, that hemp fibers could replace wood chip fibers in paper production. Such a move could have threatened the powerful William Randolph Hearst and his vast timber holdings from which he got his newsprint.

Further complicating the economic landscape was the inclusion of the Cannabis family of plants in the 1925 revision of the International Opium Convention as a drug. The Boggs Act of 1952 is the first time in federal drug legislation that marihuana and narcotic drugs were lumped together, but the damage had already been done.  In 1970 any cultivation of Cannabis plants what-so-ever was banned in the U.S.

More recently, at least since the mid-1990s, automobile parts manufacturers in Europe have been developing a process to use bio-mass fibers as a raw material. These fibers have included soy, switchgrass and hemp. The technology has been around since the late '30s so it is nothing new.

In 1941, Henry Ford made an experimental car body out of organic fibers that included hemp. As a demonstration, it was struck with an ax handle without damage to anything but the ax handle – it broke. Sadly, production costs proved to be too high, raw materials in short supply and World War II intervened, or we may have had many more lighter weight, auto-bodies when the “muscle car” engines developed. Imagine the Corvette with a bio-fiber shell rather than fiberglass or the polycarbonate shell of the old Saturn line which tended to shatter in colder climes.

Hemp is legally grown by 29 countries around the world at present and most will export many products made from that hemp. China, Russia and Korea produce a lion's share of those exports yet each year the U.S. government identifies those countries that it considers to be drug-exporting nations and they are not on the list. We Americans can legally import hemp products from as close as Canada but we cannot join the global market place or become hemp independent or export our own.

A number of our state's leaders wish to change the status quo and position Kentucky  to proudly return to leading the world in hemp production, employing many farmers in the process.  This week the The Kentucky Chamber of Commerce joined Agriculture Commissioner James Comer in supporting legislation allowing hemp production.  Federal law still stands in the way, yet fully half of the our state's Congressional delegation have stated support of efforts to legalize growing hemp.

Not all farmers can get in the horse business and the tobacco business has just about dried up. Our produce farmers and remaining dairy/cattle farmers are scrapping for what tillable land there is left.  Hemp can be grown on more marginal land and we still have some of that, especially in the more eastern region where they need the help.

Hemp legislation can be done in a reasonable and safe manner if we try.  Let us all try to be proud Kentuckians, employed proud Kentuckians.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2013/01/11/2472773/kentucky-business-group-gets-behind.html#storylink=cpy

Becoming An "Urban County"

I heard a conversation today where the participants, clearly very pro PDR (that is Lexington's Purchase of Development Rights program) spoke of the council representation for the 12^th district. I believe that the exact words were that “the rural interests of the 12^th district have not been represented since Gloria Martin left office”. That is just the facts of living in a continually urbanizing county and the willing move to raise the minimum lot size for residential use.

Fayette County has twelve council districts which, by charter, are supposed to be nearly equal in population based on the latest Census figures. Even in the early days of merger, that meant including a good portion of the suburban neighborhoods.

Lexington chose to become a very compact city, when in 1958 they imposed a urban growth boundary (USA), actually the very first in the nation. It was designed to bring on orderly, cost efficient development and prevent dispersing services widely throughout the county. Many of its objectives did as designed but some such as our trunk sewer system could have used some better estimates on sizing.

At about the same time the local health department recognized that septic systems in the rural areas would need larger lots in order to function correctly and imposed a 10 acre minimum on all new development outside the growth boundary. This, of course, would bring the overall residential density of the rural area lower over time without other influences coming into play.

But other influences did come into play, in the form of “agricultural” subdivisions for those wishing for a place in the country. Ten acre plots springing up all over the county for housing a family looking for basically a status symbol house and little more. Farmland being used for fewer and fewer people and no agricultural production of any kind. Actually a worse type of sprawl than paving it all over and building shopping centers on it. The rural character was lost as well as the loss of density.

The authors of the merger charter desired to live up to the spirit of the Urban Service Area concept by designating one council district, the 12^th, to be as rural as they could make it. Unfortunately, that meant including enough of the urban subdivisions to bring the district population proportionate to 1/12^th of the county. To accomplish that a large part of the long established USA was required to be included.

By now it should be easy to see that, electing a representative in an area which will only grow more urban and expect that representative, being responsive to his constituents, to remain totally rural focused. A council member elected every two years, a district adjusted every ten years and the trend toward increasing urbanization can only mean a loss of rural influence.

It may be this loss of influence that these folks were speaking of which will play a part in the ongoing onslaught toward PDR.

Many people are beginning to feel that, in these days of increasing budgets and falling revenues, PDR is a luxury that we can no longer afford. I have heard it said that PDR is paying property owners for development rights on land that cannot be developed as it is.

This is not to say that a major thoroughbred farm operation or the Horse Park/Keeneland type places is not fully developed, because they obviously are. But should we pay for these “developed” farms to NOT develop? The Council's last few budget battles have brought more and more pressure to bear on the viability of continuing to fund PDR.

Gloria Martin was a championing force behind PDR and the increase to 40 acre minimum lot size as well as the 300 foot setback for rural houses, and failing any rural influence since her departure, PDR may be in real trouble. This year will see a district race in which PDR will probably have a good showdown. The real rural dweller in the race is set on dismantling the existing program and the suburbanite candidate may not be able to fund its continuance.

We are marching on to becoming an urban county.

Can Raw Milk Save Local Farming?

Last week I wrote about the pre-filed bill for the legalization of raw milk which made me research the dairy doings in Kentucky. Looking back at the Community Farm Alliance site archives from July of last year, I somewhat remember the news that our state's dairy farms are continuing a fairly steady decline in number.

Back in 1975 there were 22,000 “operations with dairy cows” which may not mean that they were actual dairies but probably that the milk was sold as part of the farm operations. This year, we are at 892 farms that the state considers dairies or have dairy cows. That was 58 less than last year and it will most likely fall again this year. Of that total under 30 have herds of over 500 head and may be called industrial dairies, all the rest appear to be smaller type farmers and the real producers of local milk.

The idea that Kentucky farms can produce all the milk to be consumed is understandable but the fact that we import some of our retail milk from as far away as New Mexico starts to baffle the mind. Milk that has been shipped that far can easily lose any of the nutrients that may be left after pasteurization and will probably need some supplements added. Doesn't the cost of shipping a product that far enter in to the retail price?

The State tells us to “drink more milk” and the dairy industry keeps saying that “Milk is the real thing” but our dairy farms are literally drying up and blowing away. Past legislative actions to benefit dairies have stalled due to the fear that the fees collected to pay for government loans or grants would have come from surcharges to the retail milk price. We cannot do more for our farmers by removing barriers to business, we have to find ways bill both the farmer AND the consumer for manipulating the free market.

The July article states that a farmer who is able to sell raw milk could ask a premium of about $4 dollars a half gallon but does not state why. Since raw milk sales are not legal, that sales difference is lost to the local farming community. Raw milk sales will not increase the availability or supply of milk but it may allow more farmers to add to the products that they now have. Just another way to add to the farm operations bottom line.

If the annual economic impact of a single milk cow is $4,500.00, then the impact of 10-15 head dairy herds in small communities spread over state will do more that a handful of industrial feedlot dairies, yet it is the big boys who influence regulations and laws. Why shouldn't the 99% of the farmers be “Ky Proud” and not just the 1% of industrial farmers who can buy the designation?

I will end in echoing the comments of the July article which says:

We need a way to allow farmers to dairy on a family-sized scale while rewarding them for responsible herd and land management.  This means paying dairy farmers a fair price for what they produce–something that hasn’t happened for decades.