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:leers plant idea for future http: / /www.charlotte.com/ observer / local /catawba/docs /farmland0903.htm <br />li <br />2 <br />charlotte.com - That's Racin' - Yellow Pages - Just Go - Free E -Mail - Community <br />Local Guide - Health - CareerPath - Real Estate - cars.com - Classifieds <br />LQXUS r <br />Alp <br />V8r. <br />Pruor <br />A- section <br />Nation /World <br />Opinion <br />Siers cartoon <br />Observer Forum <br />Business News <br />Business Update <br />Business Monday <br />Click <br />Technology <br />Industry news <br />Stock Quotes <br />Mortgage Rates <br />Motley Fool <br />Tax value search <br />Todav's Observer <br />Message Boards <br />That's Racin' <br />Latest news <br />Panthers /NFL <br />Hornets /NBA <br />Sting /WNBA' <br />Outdoors <br />Golf <br />The r10 to seer <br />Published Sunday, September 3, 2000 <br />E -mail this story to a friend <br />Farmers plant idea for future <br />Caldwell considers plan to preserve land <br />By ERICA BESHEARS <br />LENOIR -- Being a farmer has never been easy. <br />But it gets harder when the area around the farm starts filling up with <br />homes on half -acre tracts. Just ask John Cassavaugh, a beef cattle <br />farmer who lives between Baton and Gamewell. He used to have six <br />neighbors along the perimeter of his 200 acres. Now he has 26. <br />"It gets to where if you spread manure you get complaints, if you have <br />honey bees you get complaints," he said. "That kind of situation." <br />As growth continues, the farmer, who is only doing what he's done for <br />years, becomes the community nuisance, Cassavaugh said. And when <br />it comes to angering the neighbors or selling the farm to a developer, <br />selling is a more attractive option. <br />So Cassavaugh is working on a project that would make it easier for <br />farmers in Caldwell County to keep farming, which would also <br />preserve some of the county's treasured open space. "Good farmland <br />should not be blacktop," Cassavaugh said. <br />The farmland preservation program would create agricultural districts <br />across the county and a committee to oversee them, said Seth Nagy, <br />agricultural extension agent for the county cooperative extension <br />service, which is organizing the effort in Caldwell County. The <br />farmers would join the districts voluntarily, and they could withdraw <br />from them. <br />There would be signs posted warning people that they've entered an <br />Living agricultural zone, and anyone who bought or built a house in the <br />Health district would be notified the home is in a farming district. Then <br />Food people would have fewer grounds to complain about smellim4 manure <br />.,f 'A 9/6/2000 1:07 PM <br />