Lehigh County commissioners approve leasing struggling Seed Farm to CACLV

Lehigh County has agreed to lease its financially struggling Seed Farm to the Community Action Committee of the Lehigh Valley, which plans to earmark some produce grown there for the region’s largest food pantry.CACLV, a wide-reaching nonprofit, runs Second Harvest Food Bank and assists in economic development, among a myriad other services. It plans to use the 42-acre farm in Upper Milford Township to expand vocational training programs, while using some produce to help low-income families served by Second Harvest. Commissioners approved the five-year lease Wednesday.“We all know how important farming is to Pennsylvania and the Lehigh County economy … [and] many people who work in the city don’t even know where their food comes from,” Commissioner Percy Dougherty said. “It’s very important to support not only farmland preservation but to support the training of new farmers, and this marriage … will foster that interaction.”Lehigh County is among Pennsylvania’s leading counties for farmland preservation, but farmers are increasingly aging out of the business.The county launched the Seed Farm in 2009 as an effort to educate the next generation of farmers and give them the business acumen, labor skills and startup opportunities needed to break into the industry. The facility was carved out of a 453-acre county-owned farm in Upper and Lower Milford townships.At the time, few apprenticeship programs existed for would-be farmers, and students flocked from as far away as Philadelphia. But in the intervening decade, other companies and organizations started their own apprenticeship programs, ones in which students didn’t have to pay tuition. That put financial pressure on the Seed Farm.The county approached CACLV last summer about taking over. At that time, CACLV Executive Director Alan Jennings said that his organization could more efficiently run the program than the county because it already has a large team dedicated to fundraising efforts and staff.Those resources would allow the existing staff to focus on running the Seed Farm without dividing their attention between fundraising and the program’s operations, he said.Commissioner Marc Grammes said the Seed Farm has a notable emphasis on horticulture, meaning plant-growing and crop cultivation on a smaller scale than commercial agriculture.“Not everything is about dairy farms,” Grammes said. “Horticulture is … as important as agriculture and that’s what these students are going to school for at the [Lehigh Career and Technical Institute] … you have an excellent opportunity to include Future Farmers of America and get them out in the fields.”Gabriela L. Laracca is a freelance writer.
Source: Morningcall