Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, March 6, 1995                   TAG: 9503060001
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CLOVERDALE                                 LENGTH: Medium

NOW IT'S AN AGRICULTURAL ISLAND SURROUNDED BY SUBDIVISIONS

Irene and Charles Beahm sometimes drive up the road behind their old farm to where bulldozers are scraping a clearing for another new house.

Irene's father and three generations before him grew vegetables here in the flat stretch of earth between Tinker and Read mountains. As a child, she hand-wiped tomatoes for packing and learned her ABC's in the dirt while her mother worked in the fields.

``I was used to growing up with no houses,'' says Irene, 72, a retired schoolteacher. Now, the place is an agricultural island surrounded by subdivisions with names like Waterfall Lake, Rosamae Gardens, Apple Tree Village and Runaway Village.

``We're observing the changes and taking it in, whether we like it or not,'' Charles says. ``If I were still farming, why, it would be rather upsetting.''

His oldest son, Michael, 43, is the full-time farmer now, raising about 125 head of cattle on the 105-acre family farm. And, yes, he is worried about the future.

Michael says he tries to be conscientious about his suburban neighbors, using a minimal amount of pesticides and not spraying on July 4 or weekends. He has heard from several neighbors who want him to continue farming because they like seeing the cows and barns from their kitchen windows. But the increasing traffic by urban commuters is bothersome and dangerous. Traffic on Sanderson Drive increased 17 percent in two years, up to 3,337 daily trips in 1992.

``It's just a matter of time before somebody runs into me,'' he says.

Michael says he ``very much'' wants to continue farming. But as the cost of farming increases over the next 10 to 20 years, his place will soon be too small to make a buck.

Cattle farmers literally need room to grow, to graze their animals, but the Beahms are landlocked. And switching to food crops or fruit orchards is impractical because of the cost and lack of labor.

``At some point,'' Michael says, ``our farm will be swallowed up and developed. That's a given.''