ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, February 3, 1997 TAG: 9702030016
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: HOLLYBROOK
SOURCE: DAVID REED ASSOCIATED PRESS
OFFICIALS BELIEVE that prison farms could be expanded to reach a point where profits cover the costs of feeding inmates.
For miles along the rolling hills of Big Walker Valley, between two small Amish farms, there is a stretch of neat, whitewashed fence, matching white barns and herds of cattle.
It soon becomes clear, however, that this 2,200-acre spread is not run by some cattle baron. The narrow road that winds toward Big Walker Creek ends abruptly at the razor wire and guard towers of Bland Correctional Center.
The Department of Corrections believes that prison farms like this one could be expanded and modified so that taxpayers would no longer have to pay to feed inmates.
The prisons have plenty of land - 10,000 acres. But the administrators need the help of Virginia Tech's agriculture experts to reach a point where profits from inmate farms cover the costs of feeding inmates.
The General Assembly will consider a budget amendment in the coming weeks that would allocate $250,000 for a study of inmate food production.
The proposal by Del. Jim Shuler, a veterinarian from Blacksburg, would be the second phase of a program that started three years ago with a focus on vegetable production.
Inmates this year will grow labor-intensive crops such as asparagus, strawberries and tomatoes on a 210-acre farm beside the Nottaway River near Greensville Correctional Center.
Crops would be sold on the open market and, with average yields and prices, the program should gross $3 million a year, Virginia Tech agriculture economist Paul Hoepner said.
He estimated an annual profit of $2.1million after projected production costs of $900,000, including small payments to inmate farmers, the farm manager's salary, and fuel and fertilizer expenses.
The prison system spent about $1.3 million last year on vegetables (cheap varieties such as potatoes and string beans), so Hoepner estimates that taxpayers will save $800,000.
``We have succeeded in producing a plan that makes Virginia self-sufficient in terms of inmate vegetable needs,'' Hoepner said. The second phase of the program is intended to make the prison system totally self-sufficient for food, he added.
It costs an average of $3.46 a day, or $1,263 a year, to feed an inmate. With 25,500 inmates, that's $32.2 million a year.
Overall last year, prison farms produced about 450 tons of vegetables and 1,000 tons of meat and fish. Prison farm managers run a fish-cleaning operation in Southhampton and they are developing apple and peach orchards in western Virginia.
Prison farms have already gone through numerous transformations.
The inmates at Bland and those who work on prison farms outside Richmond produce virtually all the milk that Virginia's 25,500 inmates and their guards drink every year - about 700,000 gallons. They also grow all the hay and corn silage needed to feed 2,100 beef cattle.
The farm managers modified the 45-year-old dairy operation recently because they determined that the herd size would have to be doubled to provide enough milk to supply the growing number of inmates.
The Bland prison inmates also stopped raising hogs because it became too expensive to meet environmental regulations, and they stopped canning vegetables because it became cheaper to buy them.
Until two years ago, Bland inmates slaughtered their own cows and ground all the meat - including expensive cuts like tenderloins and T-bones - into hamburger. Serving whole cuts of meat caused inmate confrontations over who got the largest and choicest cuts, said Clarence Hollar, the assistant warden at Bland.
``The taxpayers of Virginia would rather not have inmates eating T-bone steaks,'' Hollar said.
Now, the prison farms sell the cattle they raise, and the profits just about pay for the cheap beef cuts the prison now purchases. Inmates working in the Bland slaughterhouse process the meat into chuckwagon steaks, hamburgers and stew cubes - all portions identical in size.
William Gillette, the head of agriculture operations for the corrections department, proposed stretching the milk production by adding powdered skim milk and water to make a drink that was essentially 2 percent milkfat rather than whole milk.
``That's what my mother did when we were kids, so I thought if it was good enough for my family and others, it should be good enough for the inmates,'' Gillette said.
Virginia Farm Bureau spokesman Greg Hicks said farmers don't believe the inmates are competing with them and they support the expanded agriculture program in prisons because it instills a solid work ethic.
Gillette said the work expands the inmates' job skills, even if they don't end up as farm hands after they are released.
Gillette said a former inmate recently came to his home to tell him about the job he got operating a paving machine for a highway contractor.
``The foreman came up to him one day, complimented him on the straight lines he was making and asked how he learned so quickly," Gillette said. "He got the experience operating a tractor in prison corn fields.''
LENGTH: Medium: 98 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: GENE DALTON STAFF. Bland Correctional Center inmatesby CNBJames Lamie and Brian Laakkonen do the daily milking. color.