Agenda - 11-05-1979 - Laserfiche WebLink

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(3) increasingly, the trend in farm areas is toward fewer and larger farms which, while not necessarily leading to increases in production, decreases the stability of farm communities, especially as absentee ownership by land speculators, Large agri-business enterprises, and other such entities replaces family .farm operations which traditionally support a deversified local economy, valued community institutions, and an agricultural community based upon family farms; (4) a strong family farm system of agriculture provides a widely dispersed mechanism of food and fiber production and marketing to insure continuous, local,reasonably-priced food supplies and an active demand for secondary services in rural communities; (5) government policies, including price supports, tares, loans, marketing programs, soil and water conservation programs, research, and education have a direct and substantial effect on the development, continuation, and maintenance of productive family farms; (6) as family farms have dwindled in number and expanded in size, the economy of rural communities has declined in part due to the impact of government policies which have contributed to (a) insta- bility of farm prices, (b) rising costs of land, (c) high costs and scarcity of energy-intensive farming inputs, (il) marketing problems, (e) limited financing for small and moderately-sized family farm:, and (f) research, technology, training, and education inappropriate to the conservation of soil and water quality and the development and maintenance of a productive family farm system of agriculture; (7) our agricultural land is a natural resource which has multiple uses including food and fiber production, habitat for fish and wild- life, a source of open space and clean water for public health, and a provider of vegetative cover necessary for the maintenance of clean air and the revitalization of a productive soil base; and (8) the Department of Agriculture needs to provide leadership by establishing family farm priorities, changing current programs, and establishing new programs in order to improve the quality of life of small and moderately-sized family farmers, to encourage the continuation of small and moderately-sized family farms, to create opportunities for the expansion of a family farming system of agriculture, and to support viable rural communities. BE IT FURTHER HESGLVED that Orange County, North Carolina Board of Crlmmi5s16nCI'S seek every assistance from JA iES B. HUNT, JR., Governor, and JAIIES A. GRAHAM, North Carolina Commissioner of Agriculture, to actively support this resolution by personally testifying before members of the United States Congress and the United States Secretary of Agriculture, MR, BOB BERGTAND. IN WITNESS WHEREOF and pursuant to the authority of Dri11G�e ijt.-Nol'ih-Garolina Board of Commissioners , this resolution is duly recorded this nth day of November 19 - I