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The Blue Ridge Women in Agriculture hosted a conference Friday that focused on preserving farms with new forms of agricultural products and diverse marketing approaches, with participants sharing information on a variety of topics.
While women were the hosts, the conference was attended by a number of various agricultural sectors. Britt Cobb, Jr., the N.C. Commissioner of Agriculture, addressed the audience in the morning session and talked about the challenges facing farmers in the current economic climate.
“We are still a state of small farms,” he said. Eighty percent of the state’s farms meet that definition, comprising 180 or fewer acres. Cobb said such conferences were an opportunity to learn from one another about successful techniques and tactics.
He said the role of his department was creating jobs in agriculture, developing markets for agricultural products, providing consumer protection, preventing the spread of deadly diseases, and protecting the environment.
He spoke about emerging trends that farmers were embracing to compete with international producers.
“Agritourism is going to save a lot of small farms,” Cobb said. “I\'m amazed at the number of people who grow up without a connection to the farm.”
Cobb spoke of a school class that visited a farm, with none of the students coming from a farm.
He said none of their grandparents had a farm, either. He also spoke about value-added marketing, in which farmers engage in a small trade or industry to create products from the things they grow that can then be sold for a premium. He said it was a change from simply growing a product and then shipping it off to others who then also made a profit. Cobb said keeping more of the work on the farm added to farm income.
“The future of agriculture in the state is in developing markets closer to the farm,” he said. “There\'s a greater return on investment and the creation of more local jobs. We\'re not shipping to another country who further processes it. We\'re keeping jobs here.”
Cobb talked about a shared-use facility the state is developing in the western part of the state, managed by someone with a food sciences background. Growers will be able to use the facility to freeze, can, or dehydrate their goods, adding to the shelf life and value of the product.
He mentioned a project in eastern North Carolina where farmers were asked to grow rice and restore wetlands that had once been drained and filled to grow other crops. He also described niche markets and new biotechnology that was leading to products such as softball-sized watermelon and research into goats as a meat source.
Sheilda Sutton, associate director of the cooperative extension service, said there were many challenges facing the agricultural community, and that women were working “side by side with men” to change agriculture in the state.
“Today, women have come to the forefront in the agricultural industry,” she said. “The nature and character of women has contributed to this zest to explore new alternative crops and the potential to add value to those crops.”
Cobb said the state has an AGRlight program, a whole farm protection program, to help cover gaps in crop insurance. While 150 commercial crops are grown in the state, only 22 are covered by federal crop insurance.
AGRlight enables farmers to buy “revenue protection” for the farm, with North Carolina being the first state to offer the program. Cobb said the insurance program would take effect in 2005 and help farmers who might face financial hardship if certain crops fail.
Cobb said, “Agriculture has always faced a lot of issues. Marketing and diversification is the key.”
Stacey A. Phipps, associate state attorney general, spoke of some of the legal issues to consider when opening up a farm for agritourism, especially when bringing visitors to a commercial operation.
She said the farmer might face some liability and that negligence is the most common charge in a civil suit.
She said the good news was that farmers weren't likely to get sued, but that all someone had to do to file suit was fill out the papers and pay a small court fee.
She suggested farmers who want to bring people to their farm should talk with an attorney and consider liability insurance. “There's too much at risk in handling a claim yourself,” she said.
She said the plaintiff files a suit of complaint, the defendant then files an answer and files motions, and then comes the discovery process in which evidence is sifted. Adults have three years to file a negligence suit, while children can file anytime up until they reach adult status at the age of 18.
Farmers might have some relief if the person helped cause their injury through “contributing negligence,” and the suit might be thrown out if the plaintiff “failed to act as a reasonable person under circumstances then and there existing.”
Phipps said farmers weren\'t allowed to booby-trap their land, though they may have some protection if an uninvited person or trespasser gets hurt on their land.
Other protections include exercising reasonable care in maintenance of the premises and that children on a field trip are generally considered to be under the supervision of teachers or parents.
Special activities such as horseback riding, skiing or roller skating might have to meet other kinds of liability standards. Ponds, creeks and other bodies of water are usually not held as a nuisance, though a swimming pool might be considered an “attractive nuisance” which would require some sort of steps to prohibit access.
Phipps cited a case in which an adult helped several children, none wearing life preservers, launch a paddle boat on a farm\'s pond. All were trespassing on public land. Two children and the adult drowned when the boat took on water in the middle of the pond.
The court held that the “intervening negligence” of the adult who encouraged the trespassing insulated the land owners from responsibility.
The attractive nuisance doctrine was held inapplicable by the court since a pond was considered an “obvious condition.”
Other topics included alternative agriculture, sustainable agriculture, risk management planning, specialty niches for small farmers, local harvests and marketing.
The conference was entitled “Cultivating Dreams, Breaking New Ground, Harvesting Profits.” Blue Ridge Women in Agriculture is a non-profit group focusing on issues facing small farmers.
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