"Under the plan, bids will open this month on lease agreements for most of those areas, which will run for 12 months. Commissioner Alan Branson, who grew up on a farm in the eastern part of the county, objected to that lease term, saying it wouldn’t give prospective farmers adequate time to turn the land around for crops.
“It’s a fairly big expense to bring the soil’s pH level to what they need it to be to yield, so they’re investing not only in the lease, but out-of-pocket, their expense to produce what they need to per acre is going to be fairly expensive,” Branson said. “It’s not going to happen over one year. I know we’ve got some city boys on the board, but we need to all have an understanding of what it’s like.”
Anne Hice, a Pleasant Garden resident with a farming background, echoed Branson’s concerns after the meeting.
“I don’t want a one-year lease,” she said. “A farmer puts so much effort into any kind of crop or pasture, and honestly, that prison farm needs at least five years to get into shape.”
Yep, it's a plan designed to fail and in just a few years when area farmers aren't willing to sign one year leases our County Commissioners will throw up their hands and tell us how they tried to save the farm but must now sell the property to developers or give it away to build a megasite.
But this blog post will still be online to serve as a reminder that they were caught in the act even if the News & Record deletes their archives again. That, my friends, is what makes this blog important to all of you.
