Agritourism initiative plants seeds for coordinated, strategic economic growth
Agritourism could be a path to profit for small area farms. Since the early 1700s, farming has been central to the spirit and success of the Shenandoah Valley. Today agriculture continues to play a fundamental role in the Valley’s community and economic health.
Agricultural tourism, or agritourism, merges the world of travel with special farm-related experiences. Across the country, there is growing interest in connecting and promoting agricultural assets. “Travelers are seeking authentic, local products and experiences,” says Sheryl Wagner, Staunton’s director of tourism.
A new agritourism grant from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development will coordinate and strengthen this key regional strength. The Fields of Gold initiative aims to inventory and map the region’s agricultural assets, sites, and businesses; study the impact of agritourism on the local economy; and promote the region as an agritourism destination. $56,250 in project funding is available to support the initiative.
Program expectations include:
Distinguishing the Shenandoah Valley region as a premier agritourism destination;
Opening new and profitable markets for local farm products, services and experiences;
Generating expenditures by tourists including meals, lodging, and retail purchases;
Create new jobs both on and off the farm; and
Rebuilding valuable connections between rural and urban populations.
Local officials, farmers and business people are rallying behind the Fields of Gold idea. “Our area is blessed with an abundance of farms, wineries, orchards, farmers markets, pick-your-own fields, and local-food restaurants that attract visitors to our area in increasingly larger numbers,” says Amanda Glover, assistant director of economic development for Staunton.
Staunton’s growing reputation as a culinary destination is due, in part, to an emerging slate of farm-to-fork restaurants such as Staunton Grocery and Zynodoa. When restaurateurs and retailers sell local farm products, they increase demand for these local products and provide a significant portion of farm revenue for producers.
“Since its inception, Staunton Grocery has helped at least one local farmer increase production and shift from part-time farming to full-time farming,” says Ian Boden, chef and owner. “The local food economy is totally integrated,” he continues “restaurants help sustain agriculture in the surrounding area.”
Jeff Goode, owner of Zynodoa restaurant, adds, “we buy from local producers, and the farm-to-table connection is also a culinary draw for visitors who travel to the Valley. We have the luxury of being able to source some of the best ingredients available anywhere in the country – right in our own back yard.”
The Greater Augusta Regional Chamber of Commerce recently launched the first annual Agritourism Festival at Hermitage Hill Farm & Stable in Augusta County, which attracted more than 600 people.
“Incredibly positive things can come from connecting and growing our clean, green industry of agritourism. By turning our agricultural dollars back into the local economy we are contributing to the future vitality of our family farms and creating a quality of life that is second to none,” says Nancy Sorrells, a member of the Augusta County Board of Supervisors and member of the Fields of Gold Steering Committee.
Already, over a quarter of the total value of agricultural products sold in Virginia comes from the Central Shenandoah Region. “Agritourism destinations like Barren Ridge Vineyards, Ox Eye Vineyards, Polyface Farm, and Andre Viette Nurseries are local economic anchors, attracting visitors and providing jobs,” says Dennis Burnett, director of economic development for Augusta County.
Through this collaborative effort, the region hopes to create opportunities for farmers, entrepreneurs and existing agribusinesses to grow their business and increase their profits, while at the same time, giving the general public opportunities to learn about and enjoy the many faces of agriculture.
Survey efforts are currently underway to collect information on the region’s agritourism businesses, activities, farm retailers and restaurants featuring local products. Please let the CSPDC know if you run an agritourism business seasonally, year-around, part-time or full-time by filling out a survey at www.surveymonkey.com/s/Fields_of_Gold.
Kate Wofford: Congress should accept Valley’s caution on gas drilling
A dozen Shenandoah Valley residents and I went to Washington last Friday, where I served as a witness at a congressional oversight hearing. The focus was a U.S. Forest Service proposal to ban a controversial natural gas drilling technique – horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing – from more than one million acres of public land in western Virginia.
We listened to members of the U.S. House of Representatives, gas industry lobbyists, and even Virginia’s own deputy director of natural resources, insist that horizontal gas drilling would solve the nation’s economic and energy woes with no threats to local water supplies or communities.
There’s just one problem. In the conservative Shenandoah Valley, elected officials and residents studied gas drilling in other regions and are skeptical of this rosy scenario.
Three Valley counties and two cities – Augusta, Rockingham, Shenandoah, Harrisonburg and Staunton – specifically asked the Forest Service for restrictions on this type of gas development on the George Washington National Forest, at least until increased federal and state regulation and oversight are in place.
So last Friday, I found myself defending the importance of local communities’ voice in public lands management planning to members of Congress insisting they know what is best for the Valley.
At issue is the draft management plan for the GW National Forest, which represents 29 percent of all the land in Augusta County and 24 percent in both Rockingham and Shenandoah Counties. The forest provides public drinking water to 260,000 residents in and around the Valley. The management plan will have a major impact on local land use and water supplies for at least 15 years.
In 2007 (three years before natural gas drilling emerged as an issue here), the Valley’s elected officials started asking forest planners to identify and protect drinking water sources on public lands. Forty local governments and civic organizations, representing 340,000 residents, adopted resolutions urging the Forest Service to manage public drinking water quality and supply. The Forest Service included improved protections in the draft management plan.
In early 2010, Rockingham County supervisors were faced with a zoning request for the state’s first proposed natural gas well to horizontal drilling and hydrofracking. The process involves injecting millions of gallons of water and chemicals more than a mile underground to break up Marcellus shale and release natural gas.
The Shenandoah Valley has no history of, or strategy for, intensive energy development on its rural lands. In fact, local governments have long-supported rural economic development based on productive working farm and forest lands and robust tourism and recreation sectors. Water supplies are limited, with planners looking for ways to cope with future shortages.
So Rockingham County officials drove five hours each way to visit Wetzel County, WVA, where this type of gas drilling is in full swing. In West Virginia, they saw farm land bulldozed for wastewater holding ponds and drilling pads, narrow rural roads chewed up by heavy truck traffic, extensive pipeline development on farm and forest land, compressors that run all night, and mountain streams sucked dry to provide millions of gallons of water used for horizontal drilling. They talked to landowners and emergency response crews. Not one person came back from that trip and said, “This is an industry we’d like to develop in the Shenandoah Valley right now.”
Local landowners are just as wary. Joining me at the Congressional hearing was Everett May, Jr. of Rockingham County, whose family has farmed land next to the national forest for several generations. He signed a lease for gas drilling in 2006, thinking it would be a simple vertical well. Then he learned about impacts of hydrofracking in other farming communities.
Mr. May told me that he would give that shale gas lease back if he could. But he can’t. So he, and many of his neighbors, asked elected officials to take a conservative approach to hydrofracking on private lands and to make sure the Forest Service didn’t open up adjacent public lands to this industrial land use.
The U.S. Forest Service listened. The “preferred alternative” in the plan for the GW National Forest permits smaller and less intensive vertical gas wells on nearly a million acres, but would ban horizontal drilling to protect drinking water supplies and traditional uses of forestland. The restrictions are just for the George Washington and can be revised when the risks are better understood and managed.
The draft GW National Forest plan reflects careful analysis by the Forest Service, as well as the priorities of Shenandoah Valley local governments and residents. This cautious approach to one type of gas drilling in one place is not a precedent for other parts of our nation.
Virginians need to reassure the Forest Service that the agency is doing the right thing in listening to the locals. Send your comments to: comments-southern-georgewashington-jefferson@fs.fed.us by September 1st.
Kate Wofford is director of the Shenandoah Valley Network of citizens groups working to preserve rural lands and communities and strengthen the Valley’s rural economy.
David Reynolds: Getting serious
Isn’t it about time after all these terms that Bob Goodlatte gets serious about what he believes, instead of going for some longevity record in Congress?
I consider myself a conservative. Our congressman wears the same political stripes. But, I have this sinking feeling that he has never gone into battle for our common cause.
Why? I believe it is because the congressman from the Sixth District of Virginia is like too many members of the Republican establishment. They play politics like I swing a tennis racket. They hit the ball. But there is no follow through. As a result they fail to score any lasting policy points.
Nonetheless, they keep getting elected. And keep letting us down. Could it be because of their reelection strategy? You know it. It is when incumbents infer that they may be the devil – but it is always better to vote for the devil you know than the one you don’t.
This better-than-the-other guy strategy is common in Washington political circles. It is why DC is a town where cynicism rules – no matter who rules at the ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
And we wonder why so few bother to vote. If those we elect get serious about governing – not just campaigning – we will get serious about voting.
Our congressman reminds me of two others who came up short in representing me. One was a Republican; the other a Democrat. Yet they shared the same values. They valued their job above policy and party.
First the Republican. He served Northern Virginia. And did he serve NoVa! His name was Joel Broyhill. And Joel was all about serving his constituents. Not even the federal policy wonks who lived in Arlington could tell you much about his views. However, if anyone’s social security check was late, he got it fixed in short order. This led to a long term.
The other was a Democrat from Pennsylvania. His name was Dan Flood. Few knew much about his accomplishments, except that he was able to grow a mustache and wax it. And I’ll also credit him with three large federal buildings in Wilkes-Barre, PA. One is a Social Security Administration office, one is a VA hospital and the other one allowed my dad a place to work. But Dan’s real longevity weapon was that every constituent received a birthday card from their congressman. That’s how Dan used his campaign funds. He bought birthday cards!
Bob also sends more than a few cards. I love his Christmas cards. Bob, you sure have a fine growing family and your wife, Maryellen, is a gem. She is smart. And I have never seen her on the campaign trail without a smile.
But, Bob, as with dear old Dan, I expect more of my congressman than smiles, cards and handshakes, especially one with seniority. It’s called leadership. Leadership isn’t acquired by taking strong positions on safe issues of minor importance. It’s tackling the major issues and making enemies. And I also expect him or her to debate all credible opponents.
If I could, I would pull up the stakes of my elephant tent and rejoin my old friends who did a fairly decent job running the circus we call government. But I can not. They are dead. And so is their party.
So, Bob, you’re it. You’re a good man, but drop the symbolism. We know that your balanced budget amendment is just that. Do a Mark Warner and form your own Gang of Six. And please stop giving speeches to friendly groups telling us how devilish the other guys are. And then leave.
Mr. Congressman, terms on the hill can be long, but life is always short. When you get serious about leading, I’ll get serious about you. And I’ll stop throwing your fund raising letters in the waste basket. Fair enough?
Column by David Reynolds
Valley conservation leaders encouraged, cautioned
Funding challenges, the far-reaching impact of the Chesapeake Bay Act, and the rapidly rising importance of urban conservation took center stage at the Spring Meeting of the six Soil and Water Conservation Districts serving the 13 counties of the Shenandoah Valley and adjacent highlands.
Addressing the 60+ attendees, State Sen. Emmett Hanger, R-Mount Solon, noted the shift in Virginia’s rural-urban populations and the resulting impact on urban conservation, to include storm water runoff and its costly effects – that is, the huge sums spent on water treatment to remove pollutants. The senator called for significant increases in the everyday use of non-potable water (e.g., toilets and yard watering), which he claimed would save hundreds of millions of dollars once widely implemented. Hanger also reminded districts that the historical reliance on data from government-subsidized conservation practices provided imperfect estimates on watershed pollutant levels. He encouraged districts to find ways to capture the untracked impact of voluntary conservation practices to more precisely identify and monitor contaminants.
Like his Senate colleague, State Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath, stressed the importance of conservation, but warned Districts that Richmond is notoriously frugal, a fact borne out in Virginia’s last-place ranking in per capita spending on conservation. Deeds cautioned districts that Virginia will suffer greatly from federal budget cuts, as Washington has provided most of the funding for the Commonwealth’s conservation program.
Ed Overton, president of the Virginia Association of Soil & Water Conservation Districts, said the Association was “grateful to the Senate and House for recognizing the significance of the districts’ work in addressing statewide water quality issues.” He thanked the senators and their colleagues for appropriating one million dollars of the $2.8 million requested to implement Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay Watershed Implementation Plan, approved by the Environmental Protection Agency in late November.
David Kriz of USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service cautioned that forthcoming Federal budget cuts will soon force NRCS to push more conservation issues to partner agencies – including Virginia’s 47 Conservation Districts. Meanwhile, Jim Echols, regional manager for the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, warned conservation staff and leaders about the difficult challenge districts face in educating Virginians unaware of the scope, depth, and size of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The Chesapeake Bay WIP identifies numerous actions needed to reduce major sources of nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment flowing into the Bay. Key sources targeted under the plan include sewage treatment plants, industrial facilities, urban areas, septic systems, and the agricultural and forestry sectors.
The VASWCD is addressing the skyrocketing importance of urban conservation with the creation of a dual-track program to aid the 30 percent of Virginians living in urban areas. The first component of this initiative is securing a grant to establish a pilot urban “cost-share” program. The second facet, modeled after successful efforts in Illinois and North Carolina, is the establishment of a diverse program of urban-focused options from streambed restoration and rain gardens to education and training in Low-Impact Development.
Individuals interested in learning more about the key roles conservation plays in the lives of all Virginians should contact their local Soil and Water Conservation District or the Virginia Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts at 804.559.0324. Additional information is available online at www.vaswcd.org.
Augusta Free Press launches NewDominionTourist.com
A website highlighting options for tourists and hometown tourists is being launched this week by Augusta Free Press LLC.
NewDominionTourist.com will be the online complement to the New Dominion Tourist magazine that will hit the streets in Waynesboro, Staunton and Harrisonburg in April.
The print and web editions will work together to highlight what’s going on in the Central Shenandoah Valley. Sections on the website are devoted to the arts, books, film, food and dining, history, music and theater.
The front page of the NewDominionTourist.com website will highlight content in the print magazine and the latest news on goings-on. The site will also become home to the extensive calendar of events that has been hosted at AugustaFreePress.com since that website’s inception in 2002.
The Valley’s maverick Republican: Hanger gears up for State Senate re-election run
It hasn’t been that long since the word “maverick” triggered the next drink in the drinking game. John McCain, the original GOP maverick, has since made a hard turn to the far right, judging his political survival to be of more import than his political legacy.
The maverick is a dying breed in the Republican Party. Emmett Hanger is personally aware of the endangerment of the species.
“My answer to the critics is that I’m a Teddy Roosevelt Republican. We’re being taken advantage of not just by big government, but big corporations are a problem as well. With a lot of strong emphasis on the environment. I’m a big proponent of state and national parks and open space. That’s where I find myself right now. I look back to a lot of things that Roosevelt had back in that era as being important being relevant in today’s climate,” said Hanger, a Republican dating back to not all the way to TR, but still to when being a Republican wasn’t exactly cool in Virginia, when he jokes that you could “hold party meetings in a phone booth,” and whose reputation took something of a hit in 2007 with a State Senate primary challenge that nearly ended his political career.
Hanger survived the scare, went on to an easy general-election victory that November, and is on track to making a run at a fifth term in the State Senate in 2011. But the battle scars from ’07 are still visible in talking with him. “Ironically, given some of the political scuttlebutt that I’ve been branded with, my political outlook is very, very conservative,” said Hanger, 62, who was first elected to political office in 1979, half his life ago, literally.
The fuel to the fire that drove the 2007 primary challenge from a Rockbridge County businessman, Scott Sayre, that was backed by several local GOP leaders, was Hanger’s role in the bipartisan tax-reform effort that included a series of tax hikes and tax cuts adopted in 2004 that effectively added a billion dollars to the state government’s bottom line. The firebrands labeled it a billion-dollar tax increase and vowed to purge from the Republican ranks those within the party who had played a role in making it happen.
Hanger, defending his work on tax reform for taking the tax burden off localities and low-income families, narrowly won that primary, beating Sayre by 866 votes, largely on the strength of his much-higher-than-expected voter turnout in Augusta County and Staunton, his home bases, which he won by a combined 1,879 votes. He rolled to a landslide victory over Democrat David Cox in November, but the intra-Republican Party squabbling continued well into 2008, when a struggle for control of the Republican committee in Augusta County ended with the resignation of Kurt Michael, who had played a key role in the dump-Hanger putsch as the chair of the county GOP.
Hanger, who did not attend the party mass meeting that saw the re-election of Michael’s successor in Augusta County, Bill Shirley, earlier this year, is in the rare breed of politicians – with the likes of Mark Warner and John Warner and a few others – who almost don’t need a party machinery because of their wide base of support on both sides of the aisle. Hanger echoes the Warners in the critique from moderates on both sides of the political divide as to what ails American politics in the current day and age.
“When I was first getting politically active, there was just more of a pervasive general spirit of camaraderie. What we see today is a general lack of civility in politics,” Hanger said. “I think we’ve gotten way too partisan in our governance. There’s always a place for partisanship, but in governance, I just think we’re way too engaged in the partisanship. The partisanship that you see taking over governance in Washington has drifted to Richmond. It’s very obvious when our caucuses meet that a lot of our focus is on, How are we going to get ourselves re-elected? How are we going to gain more power in Richmond?”
Whether Sayre or another challenger will emerge to give Hanger a run for the Republican nomination and then in the general election in 2011 is still up in the air at this point. The stronger challenge would seem to be the intraparty one, if it were to come – particularly with the ascendance of the Tea Party, which didn’t even exist four years, on the political scene.
“There’s been a longstanding and continuing brawl within the Republican Party in Virginia over how moderate and how conservative to be. At times you see the moderate wing winning, and at various times you see the conservative wing winning. Perhaps you’ll see the Tea Party give reinforcements to the conservative wing of the Republican Party of Virginia, which has been in ascendancy in the past few years,” said Isaac Wood, a political analyst at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
“The Senate is where what moderates there are in Virginia still exist. To the extent to which the Tea Party crowd in Virginia has been energized, it makes sense that if they’re going to go after any moderates who don’t toe the line, as far as they’re concerned, then they’re going to go after Republicans in the Senate,” said Quentin Kidd, the chair of the political-science department at Christopher Newport University.
All signs seem to point to Hanger being there to fight the battle, but it’s hard not to hear a tinge of second thoughts entering into his thinking as he moves forward toward a decision.
“You talk about, will I run again? If I get to the point where I’m spending more time calculating strategies for re-electing myself rather than actually governance and enacting good policy, then I’m going to quit,” Hanger said.
“I’ve been involved, I’ve done it, and I really believe I could walk away from it. I won’t right now, because I believe my experience and the relationships that I’ve built are valuable to this area and to statewide policy. So I want to remain engaged even more than I have in the past. But I don’t like the partisan governance. I hope we can move beyond that and focus on good policy,” Hanger said.
Story by Chris Graham. Chris can be reached at freepress2@ntelos.net.
Drilling in the Valley
Millions of gallons of water are used to literally fracture the earth to get at the natural gas below. And below is the operative word – hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking, as it’s commonly called, aims at natural-gas reserves anywhere from 5,000 to 20,000 feet beneath the earth’s surface.
The good news is that natural gas is potentially a steady source of bridge fuel as our nation moves away from oil and toward renewable energies. The bad news is, well, if we don’t do it right, we could turn our own backyard into a wasteland en route.
“In the current climate, with the lack of any kind of adequate state or federal regulation, it would be absolutely not responsible now to do it. Whether or not someday in the future technology will be developed and safeguards will be in place, and best-management practices will be developed so that we can extract natural gas in a safe, responsible manner, I don’t know. I hope that we will, because it could be an important domestic source of energy. But at this point, I can say with certainty that the regulations are not in place to make it a responsible thing to do,” said Kate Wofford, the executive director of the Shenandoah Valley Network, a Luray-based community group that has been working to raise awareness of facts relative to hydrofracking. Continue reading “Drilling in the Valley” »
Local beef in local schools: A win-win
Special Report by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
It would seem to stand to reason that the breadbasket of Virginia could probably provide at least something in the way of homegrown food for schoolchildren.
And then you think about it for a second, and it occurs to you that, you know, maybe it makes sense that like everybody else we just order food for school lunches the way everybody else does, by going the mass-supplier route.
I mean, seriously – it’s not like you can just call up Farmer Fred over in West Augusta and get him to save you a side of beef and a bushel of corn without having to have the USDA and numerous other acronyms involved in the effort.
It took Amy Brown reading a magazine article about local food and then committing most of her free time over the past nine months to making local-foods-in-local-schools happen in the Shenandoah Valley to get us to where we are today. Continue reading “Local beef in local schools: A win-win” »
Building a new industrial sector in Waynesboro
Special Report by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
Waynesboro was once the envy of Western Virginia for its manufacturing economy. As recently as 1990, almost half of the city’s workforce was employed in manufacturing, whose rate of pay has traditionally been at least 40 percent and some years approaching 50 percent higher than the median income in the city.
The manufacturing interests in Waynesboro not only formed the basis of our economy. It was also the foundation of our way of life. Physicists at DuPont and engineers at General Electric demanded the kind of school system that could educate their sons and daughters to be just as productive in their adult years if not more so, and so our schools were also the envy of Western Virginia, if not the entire state.
The decline of manufacturing, from that 1990 measurement that had 4,400 jobs in the Waynesboro labor force to today, when the latest numbers from the Virginia Employment Commission, through the second quarter of 2009, has us at 1,619 jobs in manufacturing, has had myriad effects on the quality of life here.
Our standard of living has decreased, no question about it. Waynesboro still boasts a higher per-capita income than its nearest neighbor, Staunton, but in the past two years we’ve lost significant ground to a sister city just to our north, Harrisonburg, which actually has more manufacturing jobs than we do now, on an order to two to one, and has also made significant inroads in what I believe and others believe will be the economy of the 21st century, technology. Continue reading “Building a new industrial sector in Waynesboro” »
Can Waynesboro be a tourist destination?
Special Report by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
Waynesboro doesn’t have a facility like The Biltmore to pull people down off the Blue Ridge Parkway like Asheville, N.C., has. But what if it did?
Consider that between 2 and 3 million visitors go in and out of the Shenandoah National Park each year, and 20 million people travel the Blue Ridge Parkway each year.
“When you consider that you’re strategically located between those two, that’s something that no other community can boast. No one else can say that they are located in between those two huge tourism assets. That’s tremendous untapped potential there,” said Brian Ososky, the executive director of the Shenandoah Valley Travel Association, which coordinates tourism-marketing efforts for localities from the Roanoke Valley to the Winchester area.
Waynesboro is perhaps the best situated from a tourism-marketing standpoint of any locality in the Valley. We are literally at Milepost Zero, the entrance both to the Blue Ridge Parkway that runs south and the Skyline Drive and the Shenandoah National Park that runs to the north. Continue reading “Can Waynesboro be a tourist destination?” »
Winter Weather Advisory: 1 to 3 inches of snow in Greater Augusta
Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Weather Advisory for Augusta County, Staunton and Waynesboro through midnight tonight.
The forecast is calling for snow accumulations of 1 to 3 inches. The snow is expected to begin between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. The heaviest snowfall is forecast between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m.
Snow is expected to end by late evening.
Chris Graham: Time to move forward
Posted by afp on December 28, 2011 · 2 Comments
Your first instinct might be to say that it still is. Look at the West End. Every chain retail store and restaurant known to American man has set up shop out there.
Which is great – really, it is. It’s just that the jobs that they provide aren’t the backbone of a local economy, one, and two, even with the influx of low-wage jobs, we still have the highest unemployment rate in the region, by far. Continue reading “Chris Graham: Time to move forward” »
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