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November 17, 2010 Minutes 2 1) Pursue farm efforts on a regional level rather than an individual county level, particularly with regard to farm infrastructure such as processing facilities and farmers markets. 2) Develop a national advertisement campaign to attract farmers to the area. 3) Consider creating “working easements” a slight modification of a traditional agricultural conservation easement, which limits development, to one that limits development and requires active farming. 4) Consider setting up a system where the County leases land from a landowner and brokers the land to farmers—check with the Durham Soil and Water Conservation District as a potential model. 5) Consider setting up leases for different period of time, e.g. 20 years, 99 years. Ranells and Branan offered feedback on Heeks remarks based on their experience over the last several years trying to accomplish some of these efforts and noted improvement, albeit slow. Branan noted that mapping existing farm infrastructure at the regional level would be a very useful product to promote much of what Heeks suggested. For example, the different educational programs, the farmers markets, the processing facilities could be located on a map of the triangle-plus region. It would be much easier to determine what types of facilities are still needed and where they could be located to serve the greatest number of users. Branan also noted how important it is to get conventional farmers—farmers with large land holdings--to the table to begin to think about estate planning and to think strategically about what they want to happen with their land in the future. Branan noted Wake County’s success holding a landowner summit, a program similar to our agricultural summit, but with a focus on conventional farmers. 2. Rich Shaw Rich Shaw explained his role in managing the County’s Lands Legacy Program. He mentioned that the County held conservation easements on privately owned lands; the County also owned some properties, which were purchased for park use. Some of these parks will eventually become developed with active recreation facilities, ball fields and the like. Others will remain in a natural state with trails for low-impact recreation. Some of the future parkland was in agriculture prior to the County’s purchase, and in those cases, for the most part, the County has developed an arrangement with the farmer to continue to tend the land--raise hay or beef cattle—as they have in the past. There has been some discussion of developing a community garden program at the historic Blackwood Farm on New Hope Church Road; the master plan for that park has been shared with the Board of County Commissioners but has not yet been approved. Dickinson asked if lease templates were available for distribution and use. He also discussed the benefits of apprentice programs and suggested partnering potential farmers with experience farmers early on—to help develop a relationship before the up and coming farmer is ready to purchase land of his own. Heeks and Ranells concurred that there is really a need for accessible land for farmers in the intermediate stage of their agricultural careers. After finishing the Breeze Farm or similar programs for the first level of education, new farmers need a place where they can lease a larger plot of land for say five years to gain more experience, then the final level would be finding land to cultivate for the long term. Ownership is one option, but long-term leases may offer a better option for some: less up front costs to the farmer and the opportunity to retain ownership for the landowner. b. Updates & Information Sharing 1. Conservation Summit Moon referenced the agenda from the recently held Conservation Summit sponsored by the Triangle Land Conservancy (TLC). TLC holds this event annually, but this year’s topic The Conservation Benefit of Local Food and Farms: Water, Wildlife and Connecting People with Nature seemed particularly timely with some of the APB’s recent discussions. 2. Ag Summit 2011—March 21, 2010 Moon provided a brief summary of the discussion at the second meeting of the Agricultural Summit Planning Committee. Moon invited Branan and Ranells, who were also at the meeting to supplement her summary. Staff will continue to update the APB as the planning process continues. 3. Unified Development Ordinance