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is <br />information on which to designate agricultural priority areas and move forward with the <br />VFPP Ordinance updates, or whether we should wait on further mapping opportunities to <br />continue this work. <br />It is my recommendation that we use the information that we have gathered to date <br />(substantially more than has existed before) to move matters forward. While it would be <br />ideal to refine the map and have farmlands broken down into categories of activity for <br />this action, I do not think it is a necessary precursor in order to designate where the <br />agricultural priority areas are. To designate these areas it is important to know where the <br />activity centers are, and where the fields are — but not absolutely necessary to know what <br />type of farming is done on these fields. The agricultural priority areas were envisioned to <br />be geographical in nature, and not based on type of farm activity. <br />Therefore, I would like to pose the following steps for the APB's consideration: <br />a. Staff maps all of the farm fields as identified by USDA (FSA), and augments <br />these with information on other fields (or refinements of existing fields) from <br />the MRCS /Soil and Water District staff (May -June 2003) <br />b. The farm areas are identified and combined into a draft set of "districts" (June <br />2003) <br />c. The APB discusses and refines these districts to be used as the basis for <br />revisions to the VFPP Ordinance - districts within which participating farms <br />exist (June, August 2003) <br />d. These districts, along with other proposed changes to the VFPP Ordinance, <br />are considered and recommended by the APB (September 2003) <br />e. The proposed revisions are presented to the Board of Commissioners (October <br />2003) <br />It would be preferable, in my mind, to have all of the pieces related to farming activity in <br />place prior to moving forward. However, at this time, with a lengthy process behind us <br />and several additional months potentially ahead of us, I think this course may be the one <br />that best gets the needed updates on their way. <br />Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. <br />