Minutes 04-04-2019 Work Session - Laserfiche WebLink

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7 • Promoted the creation of an "Agriculture Investment Grant" program as one of the projects to be funded by revenue generated by the new one quarter ('/4) cent "Article 46" sales tax enacted in 2012 (5% of the annual revenue, or approximately $60,000) Pete Sandbeck highlighted activities that the APB expects to carry out in 2019: • Continue to promote and recommend Voluntary Agricultural Districts and Enhanced Voluntary Agricultural Districts • Support continuation of the successful Farm-to-Table Event for 4th-grade students held annually at Blackwood Farm Park. • Educate/inform new, established and prospective farmers about the recent elimination of the present-use tax value requirement for VAD/EVAD participation. • Purchase and install additional road signs to better identify farms in the Voluntary Agricultural District Program (existing and new farms) • Enroll additional farm owners in the Century Farm Program • Continue the Orange County Agricultural Heritage Project to document and make a record of the County's farms, farmers and farm life, including oral histories and video/photo documentation Peter Sandbeck reviewed some of the APB's concerns going forward: • Dairy farms, which have been an important part of Orange County's agricultural heritage, are in crisis. The number of dairies in Orange County has dwindled to 3. Commodity milk prices can no longer support our local dairies. One way forward is to work to help create a local market for our Orange County dairy products, as a way to encourage more dairy farms and keep the ones still active. Dairy farming once represented a significant percentage of the County's farmland. Action is needed to retain enough infrastructure to support the existing dairy farms now. • The average age of our farmers continues to increase, causing concerns about retirement and farm succession planning. This is an ongoing issue despite the rising numbers of young people farmers control and farm a large percentage of the County's prime open farmland, thus creating the potential for a significant decline in active farm acreage over the next decade. • The majority of the new farm operations now being started in Orange County are small market crop farms, where crops are grown intensively on smaller parcels, to be sold locally at markets. • The APB supports the concept of creating a "Present Use Value Trust Fund" to support a grant program to promote local agricultural activities and increase local markets for food produced in the County. This is proposed to be funded by deferred property tax revenue collected by the County when farmland ceases to be used for agricultural purposes. When land is taken out of the three years of deferred property taxes back to the County. Cabarrus County established a very successful program on this model. • Explore ways to educate farmers and prospective farmers about the many new agritourism opportunities that could be used to enhance and diversify farm income and bring visitors to farms. • The newly formed Food Council offers ways for the APB to become more involved in a range of initiatives to enhance local markets for farm products. Commissioner Price asked if the number of century farms is known. Peter Sandbeck said there are 28 or 29 in the Century Farm program. Peter Sandbeck said they are trying to enroll more African American farmers, and during the depression farmers had to turn to neighbors for help. He said one had to sell an adjoining