We are proud to report that Land Link has made another match! 2 acres in Poolesville is now being farmed by the Cozzi Family Farm! Will and Alicia needed more space for their growing poultry business. On a meeting with another potential landowner match, they met Jared who started Wildflower Farm in Dickerson after a successful Land Link match last year. Now both farms are among the vendors at the Cozzi Family Farm Co-Op market each weekend in Poolesville (10-2 Sat +Sun at Basset's). Despite the Ag Reserve's local food production, it is in fact a food desert as the last grocery store closed some years ago. Like in urban areas, farmers markets can bridge the gap when full service groceries are not available.
We celebrate every Land Link match and the landowners who join the program to lease their land, but another issue MCA is working on now could have real effects on the amount of acreage that is available to get these new and expanding farmers growing.
ZTA 20-01 is proposing 1800 acres of industrial solar be allowed in the Ag Reserve with no protections for prime soils/forests/water quality and no stipulations that the energy stays local.
Among many deleterious impacts of this ZTA, one is a chilling effect on leasing to these new farmers. In comparing the income generated by industrial scale solar to lease income from a table crop producer, there is no contest. When large scale solar is allowed in the Ag Reserve, old farmers are priced off the land and new farmers are completely shut out in the only part of the County set aside for farming. Please take two minutes to take action.
ZTA 20-01 is proposing 1800 acres of industrial solar be allowed in the Ag Reserve with no protections for prime soils/forests/water quality and no stipulations that the energy stays local.
Among many deleterious impacts of this ZTA, one is a chilling effect on leasing to these new farmers. In comparing the income generated by industrial scale solar to lease income from a table crop producer, there is no contest. When large scale solar is allowed in the Ag Reserve, old farmers are priced off the land and new farmers are completely shut out in the only part of the County set aside for farming. Please take two minutes to take action.
This becomes an equity issue. As reported in the Washington Post profile of Dodo Farms, matched with an acre through Land Link in 2018, many of the farmers seeking land through Land Link represent demographics that are currently not well represented in local farming. Currently, farmers on the Land Link site looking for land include a family of Syrian refugees, immigrants from a number of different countries and a little more than half of land seekers are women and People of Color. As Woody Woodroof of Red Wiggler Farm said in our Growing Legacy film, an acre of farmland is already out of reach for many in Montgomery County, despite one-third of the county being set aside for this purpose. This was the impetus for starting our Land Link program that has led to the 500+ acres of land we have matched so far. Non-Ag uses being permitted in the Ag Reserve make these matches harder to come by.
Land Link has more in common with another MCA program, Re-Leaf the Reserve, than we previously realized. Much like the acres of tree plantings we have done so far, we aren't planting a certain number of trees, we are planting a forest. Humans are learning much more about how the trees of the forest are connected by an intricate web of mycelium, a network of fungal strands. The mycelium form links between each tree in the forest and pass resources between them as you can see in this stunning video.
To truly have an impact on the wider food system, it is these lateral connections that need to form just like the Co-Op market, but first we need to grow the next generation of farmers. Industrial solar is not an agricultural use and would take land out of production now and in the future. Again - please take two minutes to take action here.
To truly have an impact on the wider food system, it is these lateral connections that need to form just like the Co-Op market, but first we need to grow the next generation of farmers. Industrial solar is not an agricultural use and would take land out of production now and in the future. Again - please take two minutes to take action here.
