Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 3, 1993 TAG: 9310010012
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The changes often are subtle and go unnoticed by those living in cities and towns, pursuing other occupations; but in the counties surrounding Roanoke, the $164.2 million farming business is ambling along on a pretty much level furrow.
The latest annual report of the Virginia Agricultural Statistics Service - a joint enterprise of the state and federal governments - shows that farming remains a significant economic activity in the region.
It reveals, among other things, that:
Bedford County ranks among the top 10 in the state in both alfalfa and other hay production and fourth in cattle and calves.
Botetourt County is eighth among Virginia counties in apple production with 171,000 bushels in 1992.
Franklin County ranks 10th in the state in overall farm production. Franklin also is second among Virginia counties in its number of dairy cows, with 11,600.
Wythe County ranks among the top 10 in milk cows, total cattle numbers, sheep and lambs, corn for silage and hay production.
Taking a longer view and talking with those involved in agriculture reveals some significant trends, such as a decline in the numbers of farms and farm acres, an increase in part-time farmers, a movement by dairy farmers into the beef cattle business, and an increase in the number of speciality farmers.
Overall farm acreage and the number of farms is on the decline. Many of those disappearing farms are turning into large-acreage subdivisions or "farmettes," snatched up by city-slickers seeking a 5- to 25-acre taste of country living.
"If farms are on the market, they're rarely sold as farms," said Louis Schiemann, Franklin County agricultural agent of the Virginia Cooperative Extension Service.
The 1974 U.S. Census of Agriculture showed 1,254 farms, covering 202,594 acres, in Franklin County. In 1987, the latest farm census for which figures are available, the number of farms had dropped to 1,016 and farm acreage to 180,212 acres. (Results of the 1992 Census of Agriculture will be available after Jan. 1.)
In southeastern Franklin County, where farmer Johnny Angell raises 43 acres of flue-cured tobacco, there seems to be a glut of subdivisions now.
Angell said he's been looking at conservation easements or other ways to ensure that his land near Smith Mountain Lake remains in agriculture after his farming days are over.
Many people are seeking to move into the countryside all over Southwest Virginia and interest in smaller farms is growing, said Giles County Extension Agent Richard Townsend. But in terms of production, the trend toward smaller acreages is not the best use of the land, he said.
On the other hand, John Byrne, who raises registered Angus beef a few miles east of Bedford near the Big Otter River, said small landowners who want their land grazed and lease it for that purpose can be a boon to farmers. It can be cheaper to lease land than own it, he said.
But the pressures of development and the rising costsof land that accompany it make it harder for young people to get into farming, Bedford County Agent Spencer Tinsley said. In 1974, the average cost per acre for a Bedford County farm was $483 compared with $1,007 per acre in 1987.
County governments, some of which are considering doing away with special tax breaks for farmland, need to remember that farming provides a positive cash flow for local tax coffers, Tinsley said. That contrasts with subdivisions where residents demand schools and other county services, costing more than the revenue they bring in, he said.
More farmers are part-timers and make most of their income away from the farm, county agents say.
The South has a higher percentage of part-time farmers - 55 percent - than any other region in the United States, according to the Census Bureau.
Farmers and county agents say that percentage is growing and already probably is much higher in the counties around Roanoke.
Most farm commodities in Giles County with the exception of milk are produced by part-time farmers, Townsend said.
Ninety-five percent of the beef cattle producers in Bedford County are part-time farmers. But today's part-timers have more cows than the full-time farmers did in the past, Tinsley said.
"We're playing with a lot more marbles than we did 40 to 50 years ago."
The trend toward part-timers can show up in the amount and types of commodities that a county produces. Trends toward less corn production and more hay production could be due to the fact that hay is relatively easier for part-timers to raise, Schiemann said.
Part-time farmers stock the land with no more livestock than the grass will feed, Bedford cattleman Byrne said.
That can be good from a conservation standpoint, because farmers aren't plowing up the hilly land to grow feed, he said.
The fact that Floyd County has become a community of part-time farmers could help explain the declining production of burley tobacco there, county farm agent Dave Gardner said.
Floyd has roughly 100 burley tobacco allotments but only about 20 of those are used to raise tobacco. Raising burley requires very hard labor and is time-consuming , Gardner said.
The trend is the same in the flue-cured tobacco belt.
The raising of flue-cured tobacco - which is dried in heated barns unlike burley, which is air-dried in barns - is one undertaking that has run counter to the trend toward part-time farming, said Angell, the Franklin County tobacco grower.
There are fewer and fewer part-time tobacco farmers, he said. Those farmers used to rely on their extended families to provide the labor for planting and harvesting tobacco crops, but that help is not available like it was in the past, he said.
Consolidation of tobacco farms and the switching by dairy farmers to the beef business are among the other changes taking place in rural Western Virginia.
As part-time farmers are leaving the tobacco business, the full-time farmers are increasing their own tobacco acreage in order to maintain their competitive position within the industry, Angell said.
Faced with health concerns and a proposed tax increase to help finance a national health plan, Angell said he was unsure what the future holds for tobacco.
Farmers see attacks coming from all directions and realize they could be facing diminishing returns on their investments, said Angell, 39. He works a farm that has been in his wife's family for four generations.
U.S. tobacco consumption is already dropping 2 percent a year and a proposed 70- to 80-cent-a-pack tax on cigarettes to help finance President Clinton's health-care plan will cut consumption even more, he said.
Each acre of tobacco already generates $62,000 in various kinds of taxes, Angell said.
"Don't go the long way around the barn to get there," he said of the attacks on tobacco. "Let's just outlaw it."
But if the government does outlaw tobacco, he said he would expect compensation for the $300,000 he has invested in his tobacco quota and for his specialized tobacco-growing equipment.
A government that has encouraged farmers for more than 50 years to grow tobacco would owe farmers that compensation if it killed the industry, he argued.
Farmers whose investments and expertise are in tobacco cannot switch overnight to growing other commodities, Angell said. A Southside Virginia vegetable co-operative came into Franklin County last year looking for farmers to grow cucumbers for a pickle company but, as far as Angell knows, there were no takers.
In Montgomery County, the number of farms with milk cows is down from 110 in 1978 to roughly three dozen, county agent Joe Hunnings said.
Dairy farmers are turning to the less demanding task of raising beef cattle or are selling their farms for subdivisions.
Some of the best crop land also is good for septic-tank drain fields, meaning it could support housing, Hunnings said.
Cattleman Byrne said he knows of two Bedford County farmers who have gone out of the dairy business in the past year and switched to raising beef. Tinsley said the county has lost three herds since May.
Byrne said dairymen always have been in the beef business to a degree because when cows are no longer good for producing milk they go to the slaughterhouse.
A growing number of farmers are foregoing the traditional Southwest Virginia commodities of beef, tobacco, milk and apples and are turning to speciality crops as a source of income.
Farmers are raising blueberries in Giles County and flowers in Franklin County.
In Rockbridge County, they're raising trout and growing grapes, elephant garlic and herbs. One farmer has planted 25 acres of sweet corn and is harvesting it mechanically, said John Repair, the county's extension agent.
"Our turkey production has increased 500 percent in the last three years," Repair said. "It's been a real plus in terms of generating alternative income for the farmer."
by CNB