Green Acres By Dave Mildenberg
Preserving farmland may be a concept that everyone can support, but it’s incredibly difficult in fast-growing metropolitan areas like Charlotte.
That’s the mission that former Belk CEO Tim Belk and others are focused on with the Carolinas Farm Fund. Charlotte is the third major market, after Chicago and Atlanta, to take part in efforts led by The Conservation Fund, an Arlington, Virginia-based preservation nonprofit.
The Carolinas fund seeks to raise $17 million in private funding over 10 years, with a goal of preserving 5,000 farm acres within 75 miles of Charlotte. So far it has raised about $4 million.
“It’s a very innovative program that they’ve tried in other states and it works,” says N.C. Agricultural Commissioner Steve Troxler.
The group’s model is to buy property through an agricultural conservation easement, then lease it to a farmer who intends to acquire the land after several years in business. Because the easement restricts usage to farming in perpetuity, the property value tends to be 40% to 60% lower than if there were no clauses. Farmers can then afford to buy the land, if they’ve shown an ability to develop a sustainable business, says Aaron Newton, the Carolinas fund program manager.
The first participant in the Charlotte area is DeepRoots CPS Farm owners Cherie and Wisdom Jzar, a couple that grows more than 60 seasonal crops on 7 acres in Mecklenburg County.Now they are expanding to 44 acres in Union County with $1.4 million of support from the Carolinas Farm Fund.
“One of the biggest hurdles to people who want to farm is getting access to more land, so this helps us tremendously,” says Cherie Jzar. Longtime farmers “are not able to preserve farmland unless they have people who want to farm it,” she says.
The Jzars started as homesteaders about 18 years ago, producing food for their family on as many as five sites in Mecklenburg County. “We started thinking in 2018, ‘We’re really good at this and we should think about starting a farming business,’” she says. They closed on their 7-acre farm in December 2021.
Expanding their business will allow them to move beyond selling directly to customers who come to their property or buy at three local farmers markets. One of their five children, who studied agriculture at North Carolina A&T State University, is working at the farm. She hopes their other children will farm, too.
“We hope ultimately that this will create a pathway for them to create generational wealth,” she says.
Belk is a third-generation member of the famous department store family, which sold their business to a private-equity group in 2015. He and his daughter, Peanut, co-own a 12-acre organic farm, Wild Hope Farm, in Chester, South Carolina, about 40 miles south of Charlotte. He is passionate about the opportunity for farmers to supply a greater portion of vegetables, fruit and proteins to city-dwellers who prefer locally grown food.
“Overcoming the hurdles of farming a larger property is daunting,” Belk says. “But small and mid-sized farms can be successful, they can pay competitive wages and generate enough cash to stay current. There will be some one step forward, two steps back, but I definitely think it is doable.”
As one of the nation’s fastest-growing regions, the Charlotte area is expected to lose 19,400 acres of farmland by 2040 to housing, retail and other developments, according to American Farmland Trust.
But affiliated groups in Atlanta and Chicago have built pipelines with about 18 farms conserved in those areas over the past four years. “The success in Atlanta gives us hope that we can do something similar over time,” Belk says.
Soaring demand for local food and increased concerns about food safety are propelling the conservation movement, Newton says. For more than four decades, only about 2% of U.S. households have been producing food for the rest of our nation.
Preserving farmland is a key priority of Troxler, who has held his elected office since 2005. “He has had a great track record in helping take agriculture in North Carolina from $50 billion to $111 billion annually,” Belk says. “We’ve got a leader who understands business, and he’s also been a real leader in farmland conservation.”
The N.C. Department of Agriculture has spent $108 million to preserve 36,000 acres of farmland since Troxler took office, he says. Last year, farmers submitted 112 applications for preservation funds, totaling $55 million. But Troxler had only $18 million in his budget. To stretch state tax dollars, the state partners with the Carolinas Farm Fund and other nonprofits.
Troxler was impressed by Deep Roots during a visit. “It was exciting to see young people who have the heart to farm and the passion to farm to get some land at a price they
can afford.”
______________________________________________________________________
Growing the family farm By Kevin Ellis
Husband-and-wife Tommy and Vicky Porter started farming on 200 acres of land in Cabarrus County in the mid-1980s. They expanded to 600 acres, but knew more would be needed to support their three kids and their eventual families, if they chose the farm lifestyle.
Three spouses and 10 grandchildren, later, their “grow the pie” plan is working out.
Advocates of preserving farmland, the Porters decided to sell conservation easements, closing on the first one in 2013. They used the money to invest in more land and now have about 1,100 acres south of Mount Pleasant, about 30 miles east of Charlotte. The family manages 2,000 sows, 400 head of beef cattle and chicken houses for 30,000 pullets and 12,000 layer hens.
“With land prices the way they are, this is a way to grow a farm,” says Vicky Porter of the easements. “That’s how to make that pie bigger.”
All but about 200 acres are now under easements or have a contract pending. The Porters conserved 367 acres earlier this year with an easement in cooperation with Salisbury-based nonprofit Three Rivers Land Trust, along with state and federal preservation programs.
The easements had to be a family decision, says Tommy Porter. “If Walmart decides in 20 years this farm would be a nice place for a distribution center, they’ll have to say, ‘no,’” he says. Their three children, ages 35 to 42, have returned to farm work after holding other jobs. (One of them remains a Concord firefighter.)
The Porters also host weddings and other events at two large venues on the farm.
The Porters describe themselves as a “unicorn family,” saying it’s rare to have all three children engaged in farming. The grandchildren also help out.
A 13-year-old granddaughter can bale hay by herself as long as an adult is also in the field, says Tommy Porter. The youngest, 2-year-old Knox, spent a recent day with his grandfather, crisscrossing the farm on an ATV to check on different equipment. That was always the dream, say the Porters. ■