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Date Posted: Monday, October 08, 02:51:21pm
Author: Christopher A. Jones
Subject: Easy to Agree with You...Living with David is Hard !
In reply to: Linda LaRue 's message, "A practical environmentally-beneficial alternative to buying up development rights: Community supported farms" on Monday, October 08, 01:50:19pm

I couldn't agree more and am dissapointed that I didn't mention it before.
The real key to land preservation of this type is to improve the "Agra-Economic Development" required to keep farms and the business they represent viable.
Maintaining the farms and subsequently the farm land means investment in the Agricultural Community to keep the farms in business.
The number one consumption of land in our Town is in farming, not commercial and not industrial. Remember less than 1% of our total land mass is zoned for commercial or industrial use.
We have a huge number of working farms in Town, with tree farms, potatoe farms, orchards, vinyards,corn, cattle and on and on.
Real land preservation should start with preserving the business base that created the farms.







>Lately, I've been exploring some emerging trends in
>eco-sensitive living. Two major drivers of such change
>are: >href="http://www.slowfoodusa.org">Slow Food USAand
> >href="http://www.100milediet.org">100 Mile Diet.
>
>Truthfully, these ideas are examples of the maxim
>"everything old is new again." The basic principle is
>simple: whenever possible, buy locally and seasonally,
>and make it worth the while of farmers to farm.
>
>Community-based farm support through subsidies, tax
>incentives and perhaps even buying local crop shares
>for low-income citizens does several things: 1. keeps
>dollars local; 2. preserves open space, while at the
>same time, making productive use of the land; 3.
>reduces the use of energy by eliminating long-distance
>transport of food which can be produced locally; 4.
>preserves a rural character and charming country
>vistas, which I believe is a big part of the drive
>behind open space preservation.
>
>When I look east, west, north and south of New
>Hartford, I think few communities have the land
>available to carry off such a proposal. I'm not
>suggesting that we could possibly provide for all our
>agricultural needs locally, but every little bit
>counts.
>
>Over the last two months or so, the bulk of my food
>purchases have been local. Obviously, wheat, rice,
>sugar, coffee, tea and other such commodities aren't
>grown locally, but local sources for fruits,
>vegetables, eggs and milk exist and I've enjoyed those
>on so many levels. It's a pleasure to know who grows
>your food, and the knowledge that you are supporting a
>local enterprise is nice, too.
>
>I'd like to start a discussion on this topic. Again,
>I'm not suggesting total local self-sufficiency, but
>rather an all-out, yet practical, community effort to
>support our neighbors working the land. What do you
>say?

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