Land Link Montgomery has been helping farmers find farmland since 2011. While the Ag Reserve is a successful 40 year experiment in farmland protection, high land prices make buying farmland in the county out of reach for many aspiring farmers. Land Link matches aspiring farmers with local landowners offering long term leases to give new farmers the stability to start new farm ventures.  With 500 acres matched so far, this program has allowed a number of new farmers get their start. 

However, many more farmers are looking for land. Currently on the site, land seekers outnumber landowners 2:1. These aspiring farmers come from all walks of life, represent many backgrounds and ethnicities, some are veterans, doctors, refugees, teachers and all have different plans for new farms. None of them can get started without land.  

The pandemic has put a fine point on the need for a stronger local food system, empty shelves last spring and continued long lines at food banks show that we need to grow more of our own food and distribute it equitably as neighbors continue to struggle with food insecurity. 

Landowners hold the key to growing more local farms that can in turn grow more local food. While large acreage is great, many land seekers are looking for a lease on just 1-5 acres. Some are seeking less than 1 acre. 

If you have land to lease and are interested in learning more, please join us for a virtual information session on March 24 at 7:30pm. 
​Full Press Release here. 

A farmer and landowner matched through the program will join us to share their experience in the program and any questions about leases, irrigation, etc will be answered. Though we focus on Montgomery County, residents from surrounding counties are most welcome. 
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Please RSVP below and the zoom link will be emailed to you.

​If you are interested in learning more about the program before the session: 
you can browse listings from the program here.  
Program FAQs here.  
Stories of matches here
See this Maryland Farm and Harvest video on Dodo Farms, matched with land through our Land Link program.

"The headline will be solar to be sited in the Ag Reserve, " said Councilmember Craig Rice.
​The amended ZTA 20-01 was passed 7-2 with Councilmembers Rice, Albornoz, Navarro, Katz, Friedson, Jawando and Glass For and Riemer and Hucker Against. The straw vote taken last month held with the addition of CM Glass supporting the amended ZTA to get some solar, rather than none, sited in the Reserve.

The Councilmembers who voted for the ZTA on why they support it, in their own words  (these are clips the full council meeting can be found here) : ​

The passed ZTA includes:

1) up to 200% accessory solar generation on farms (up from 120%) see the farms already taking advantage of on-farm solar.

2) conditional use designation for community or net aggregate metered facilities up to 2MW on no more than 1800 acres in the Reserve. The conditional use amendment was sponsored by CM Rice. 

3) exclusion of soil class I and II from solar siting (Soil Class II was added under CM Friedson's amendment. No farming really takes place on Class I soils as most are on Potomac Islands or stream buffers. Class II is where the bulk of current farms operate - check out the soil class chart. (New mapping from the county suggests that over 400 parcels remain for siting solar while avoiding productive class II soils.)

4) mandatory assessment/review provision with impact report by December 31, 2023 provided by Councilmember Jawando's amendment. 

Councilmember Rice opened the meeting by highlighting the fact that the ZTA as amended was a pathway for siting solar in the Ag Reserve. Despite the call from some solar industry supporters that wanted to see the amended ZTA pulled because of the perception that no solar would be constructed, Rice characterized the ZTA as opening the door to solar in the Reserve with the opportunity to revisit the provision in two years to see if a meaningful amount of solar is in fact sited under Councilmember Jawando's amendment creating an assessment point in two years. 

Other councilmembers chimed in with their feeling that opening the door to some solar with protections is still a big step forward toward the County's climate goals. 

Councilmember Albornoz said, "It's not a question of if we support solar in the Ag Reserve, it is a question of when and how. We have to take into account the nuances and complexities of this issue." 

Katz "I believe we will have more solar than less." He asked that the solar industry sit down with farmers to get started siting on the 4000+ available acres available under the ZTA. 

Councilmember Navarro called for an end to the divisive and binary tone that the issue had brought to discussions. "We have to be able to deliberate." 

MCA is deeply grateful to the thoughtful action of Councilmembers, our coalition partners including SCA, Clean Water Action, Montgomery County Farm Bureau and 58 other groups and our supporters who wrote,  called and spoke up for solar siting with care in the Ag Reserve. 

What's next?

• Our Board Member and Climate Liaison Joyce Bailey has been busy providing testimony in support of a number of climate and water quality bills in Annapolis. 
• Councilmembers discussing this ZTA spoke to the Reserve's importance primarily as a source of local food.  We are working to match aspiring farmers with land to strengthen our local food system. Land Link Montgomery will host an info session for Landowners on March 24. 

We've been hearing that the Friedson amendment to ZTA 20-01 that passed at the Council earlier this month protecting class II soils was a "poison pill" completely shutting out solar in the Ag Reserve - new mapping from the County shows there are in fact 4000+ acres available for solar in the Reserve with these the soil protections in place. The Council will take a final vote on the afternoon of 2/23. 

MCA, in partnership with the Montgomery County Office of Agriculture will host a farmer's winter gathering by zoom on February 24th at 7:30. This is an informal opportunity to build community and share successes and challenges before the coming growing season. To guide the conversation - we'd love to hear what is on your mind. Please let us know with the survey below. The zoom link will be emailed to registrants, please fill out the rsvp form below. 
We will be joined by Office of Ag staff and Carol Allen from the UMD school of Plan and Food Safety division to share GAP (Good Agricultural Practices) certification opportunities (the first of which is March 22 and 23rd)

Happy Black History Month. While we take time each February to highlight the many critical contributions of people of color, the innovations of Black and Indigenous people are used in sustainable agriculture through all seasons. It is important to understand and honor these contributions. 

It was Black agrarians that also brought about CSAs (Community Supported Ag). Another Tuskegee University Alum, Dr. Booker T Whatley returned from the Korean War and set up a 55 acre farm and offered a “clientele membership club” akin to the modern subscription style CSA. He saw these clubs not as just ways to feed people but also let them see farms up close - the beginnings of the Agrotourism movement. Dr. Whatley suggested that these farms offering clubs should be no more than 40 miles away from population centers to keep connections with club members. This of course reminds us of the Ag Reserve where residents can really know their farmer and participate in modern CSA programs (find your farmer here).  
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Much more about Drs. Carver and Whatley here. 

The roots of modern sustainable ag go back even further - the First Peoples of this country brought innovations to agriculture we still use today. The basis of Permaculture, another sustainable ag method, involve growing symbiotic crops in groups called "guilds". This echoes the "Three Sisters" plantings  of Indigenous Americans - corn, beans and squash are grown together - the beans fix nitrogen for the corn who's stalks are the support for the climbing bean and squash vines, the broad leaves of which deter any weeds. 

While we have Indigenous People and People of Color to thank for many of the practices that fall under "sustainable agriculture" today, the history we don't often learn involves the systemic removal of land from these same groups - sometimes by discrimination in allocation of resources, sometimes by force. 1.3% of farmers in 2017's Ag Census were Black, in 1920 14% of farmers were black. The intervening years included violence, and discrimination so rampant at the USDA it lead to the largest civil settlement in history - $2 Billion in the "Pigford" Case.  The story of what happened is captured in the excellent and hopeful book "Farming While Black," by NY state farmer Leah Penniman (and more briefly in this "How to Save a Planet" podcast episode about Regenerative Agriculture for the uninitiated). A great deep dive in this NY Times piece here. 

On the national scene, MCA supports the Justice for Black Farmers Act that would grant farmers of color land through the Land Grant program and provide training to get them growing. This bill was just re-introduced by Senators Booker, Warren and Gillibrand among others. 
Here closer to home - we are matching aspiring farmers of all types with land to get started through our Land Link program. There is particular interest from aspiring farmers of color and we are proud that two of the farms listed in the MoCo BIPOC-Owned Food Guide found their land through Land Link. Since 2011 we have connected over 500 acres of land with new and expanding farmers in Montgomery County. Farmers are looking for anywhere from 1/2-50 acres. To learn more about offering or leasing land visit our Land Link program.  

While MCA has working hard to balance solar and farming here in Montgomery County, our Climate Legislative Liaison, board member Joyce Bailey, has been busy supporting climate bills on our behalf in Annapolis. There are several environmental bills being considered this year, with the legislature still in session so we will be submitting additional written testimony in the weeks ahead. 
A brief look at what she has been up to with links to our testimony:

Pictured above - A 90 Acre Regenerative Ag pilot project at historic at Linden Farm in the Ag Reserve - a partnership between Sugarloaf Citizens Association and Greg Glenn of Rocklands Farm linked through our Land Link program. Currently, this field is planted in a cover crop of raddishes, clover and annual rye. Next will come the livestock to add manure to the field. Greg is participating the Million Acre Challenge in Maryland to roll out regenerative ag practices across the state. Learn More. 

Here at MCA we have, for a few years now, been making a big deal about Regenerative Agriculture. These newly "discovered" farming practices are actually very old (and mostly innovations of Black and Indigenous people)  but provide solutions to our climate crisis  (and specifically our carbon crisis) that are very timely. 

It is difficult to explain what this new/old field of agriculture is, unlike certification for organic production that has specific practices that are allowed or not allowed, there is no certifying body and no specific list of practices that make a farm "Regenerative". Among the practices are:
- Planting cover crops of legumes and deep rooted plants to nourish and break up heavy soils and prevent erosion.
-Using livestock to forage the cover crops, leaving their nutrient rich manure behind.
-Avoiding tilling the soil as much as possible to keep the soil structure and community of microbes intact.

This list does not give a full sense of the very real potential for Regenerative Ag to be both a powerful climate solution and kickstart an agrarian and rural revolution.

Enter an excellent new podcast - "How to Save a Planet" and their recent episode where they tackle what Regenerative Farming is and how it can be a powerful carbon sequestration and public health tool. In one hour they explain the benefits of Regenerative Ag, among them concentrating carbon in the soil, improving soil health, water quality and increasing crop yields. They also show two examples of how these practices are revitalizing farms - both a small table crop operation and a large commodity farm in the midwest. 

This podcast also does a great job of encapsulating the historical (and modern) struggles of farmers of color. Far more on this topic here. 

The podcast suggested this video from a North Dakota farmer Gabe Brown. His TedX talk is a great overview of the how and why of Regenerative Ag based on his own ranch. 

After much hard work on the part of the climate action workgroup, the county's draft climate action plan is out for public review and comment. In the absence of in-person opportunities to gather and review the plan, the County has set up a number of ways for residents to give feedback (all can be found here):

• An interactive virtual room where residents can view plan documents and leave comments.
• A 5 minute survey  
• A number of virtual climate events:

- A youth summit on February 11th
-A Business Summit on  February 19th
-A session hosted by Sustainable Barnesville on February 24
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Comments are due by February 28th. 

This plan has a number of ways the Ag Reserve can pitch in to meet the County's carbon reduction goals, particularly in the Carbon sequestration section starting on page 80 of the plan.  Learn more on what we are doing to reforest stream buffers through our Re-Leaf the Reserve program and  check out a 90 acre regenerative ag pilot project happening in Dickerson through our Land Link program.

​ZTA 20-01 raises on-farm solar generation from 120% of farm energy needs to 200% - with the excess going back to the grid. This is very helpful to both farms and addressing climate change.
Photos are of Reserve fiber and CSA farm arrays. Resources for Funding
A 62 member coalition of groups endorsed this increase and other common sense provisions of the bill that allow solar in the Reserve on soil classes 3 and above. More here.