The best part of Thanksgiving might just be second-round Saturday, when the leftovers taste better, and fractious family members are better behaved. With the pressure off to entertain and no more cooking to do, it’s a good time to reflect on where our food is produced. How much of this year’s holiday meal was grown within 100 miles of your plate?
We all have to eat, but it’s easy to lose touch with and take for granted the agricultural roots upon which we all depend. A century ago, the lower Cape Fear was a leader in agriculture and grew produce for much of the eastern seaboard. A system of ventilated, insulated and refrigerated train cars known as the Atlantic Coast “Despatch” carried fruits and vegetables from the “winter gardens of the South” in North Carolina all the way to northeastern markets on a network of standardized rail stretching thousands of miles.
As the basic unit of economic production, farms employed one in four people a century ago. Today, only 1.2% of Americans have direct on-farm employment. It’s a testament to how efficient farming has gotten and how hard farmers work to feed an entire nation mostly specialized in non-agricultural pursuits. Farms remain essential to feeding a growing population and supporting a healthy economy; however, intentional efforts are needed to preserve farmland in the face of urbanization.
Today, it’s getting harder and harder to find farmland, especially in New Hanover County where the only Rural Agriculture (RA) zoning left is the northwest corner of the county, much of which is wetland along Prince George Creek. Time is of the essence to protect what little remaining farmland is left near Wilmington. Open spaces like farmland and wetland in our rapidly growing region provide beneficial environmental services like flood control, stormwater infiltration and wildlife habitat. Brunswick and Pender counties have made a commitment to the long-term preservation of farmland by establishing a Voluntary Agricultural District (VAD), a practice in 90 of NC’s counties which ensures agricultural land remains for future farming (learn more at https://www.ncagr.gov/adfp). There is no VAD yet in New Hanover County.
Further kudos to Brunswick County for adopting a Farmland Protection Plan, joining 68 other NC counties which invested in making a formal plan to evaluate and grow the viability of local agriculture. Pender and New Hanover have no such plans. But both counties are currently reviewing their 2050 comprehensive plans and there is an opportunity for public input (to learn more about the plans, visit https://nhcgov.com/2697/Engage-NHC for New Hanover County, or https://nc-pendercounty.civicplus.com/531/Get-Involved for Pender County).
If you value agriculture as part of our community identity, if you have an appetite for local foods, or if you want to slow urban sprawl and traffic volumes, please let your respective County Commissioners and planning departments know how important rural agriculture is in our land use zoning. Farming is a part of our cultural heritage and having access to local farms is vital to our quality of life.
Matt Collogan serves as the Area Natural Resources Agent for the NC Cooperative Extension – Brunswick, New Hanover, and Pender counties. He can be reached at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Why Wilmington, NC, needs farmland protection
