Jennifer Santi Hall was elected chair of the city's greenbelt advisory commission at their July meeting, replacing Laura Rubin in that role. (Photos by the writer.)

The discussion prompted one commissioner, Dan Ezekiel, to underscore that they weren’t trying to favor small farms – they were simply trying to offset the advantages that the program has previously afforded to larger farms.

A review of revisions to the greenbelt program’s scoring criteria included a robust discussion about the meaning of “local food economy.” One of the proposed revisions would award points to farms that produce local food and contribute to the local food economy.

Commissioner Tom Bloomer, a Webster Township farmer, argued that all farms in Washtenaw County contribute to the local food economy, either directly or indirectly. Jennifer Santi Hall, who had proposed the change, agreed to withdraw the item from the scoring criteria so that they could refine the language. But she noted that it was important to find some way of including criteria for local food production, to align the scoring of applications with the greenbelt program’s strategic plan, which includes a section on the local food economy.

Later in the meeting, after nearly an hour in closed session to discuss land acquisition, the commission recommended allocating nearly $3 million in five separate deals, the majority of them for the purchase of development rights of local farms. Those recommendations will be forwarded to city council for final approval.

Support for Small Farms

Last month, at their June 9, 2010 meeting, the commission discussed possible changes to modify language in conservation easements for the city’s greenbelt program, as a way to accommodate small farms. It was one of several approaches first considered by a subcommittee on small farms that includes GAC commissioners Tom Bloomer, a Webster Township farmer; Dan Ezekiel, an Ann Arbor teacher and environmentalist; and Mike Garfield, director of the Ecology Center, an Ann Arbor nonprofit.

It’s been difficult for farmers who own land that’s not eligible for matching federal funds – because of the farm’s small size – to participate in the greenbelt program. This is partly the case because typical conservation easements for the program stipulate that only 2% of land can be covered by an impervious surface, such as a house or roads. This isn’t an issue for large farms of 40 acres or more, but it’s different for small farmers with less acreage that want to build hoop houses, which might easily result in covering more than 2% of the land.

Based on feedback from the June discussion, GAC considered the following resolution at its July 14 meeting:

Motion to support revising the conservation easement language on an as‐needed basis in the following ways for small farms and local producers to support season extension production:

1. Allow up to 20% of the conservation easement parcel for development of non‐permanent agricultural structures, such as hoop houses, in order to support season extension, so long as it is consistent with the intended purpose of the conservation easement, in order to increase the potential agriculture production on easement parcel.

2. Continue to limit the amount of impervious surface development at 2% of the easement parcel for permanent buildings.

Before the vote, Ezekiel clarified that GAC is an advisory commission to city council, which will also have to approve this change. The purpose of the greenbelt program is to preserve land, he said – farmland, and in particular small farms, is just one type of land that can be part of the program. The proposed changes came about because the existing easement language – as well as federal funding under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm and Ranchland Protection Program, or FRPP – is tilted in favor of conventional kinds of agriculture, he noted: Larger holdings and row-crop farming.

Ezekiel wanted to clarify that GAC wasn’t trying to subsidize small farms or CSAs (community-supported agriculture). They were just attempting to make the program accessible to these types of farms, he said, so that owners of small farms could be considered for the program.

Peter Allen wondered how many farms were using hoop houses. Are they rare, or are they being used more commonly to extend the growing season? The question was fielded by Bloomer, who said they’ve been a major factor in vegetable production for a long time in this northern climate, and that farmers in Washtenaw County have been expanding their vegetable acreage. “For truly small farmers, that’s a necessity,” he said.

Jennifer Santi Hall said the change would give the program access to different types of farms on an as-needed basis. She pointed out that it wasn’t requiring the commission to approve a certain size farm for the greenbelt – it would just enable them to consider applications for small farms.

Outcome: The resolution revising the conservation easement language passed unanimously.

Changes to Scoring Criteria

Ginny Trocchio of The Conservation Fund, who serves as staff for the greenbelt program under a contract with the city, presented some proposed changes to the conservation easement scoring criteria. She told commissioners that it was a follow-up to work they’d done a couple of months ago, looking at scoring criteria used by other easement programs nationwide.

The two major types of greenbelt acquisitions – agricultural land and open space – each have three categories of scoring: 1) characteristics of the land, 2) context and 3) other acquisition considerations. [.pdf file of scoring criteria, with proposed revisions indicated] When an application comes in for review, the parcel is awarded points based on this scoring criteria. Those scores are then used to evaluate whether the parcel is appropriate for the greenbelt program.

For scoring agricultural land, “local food” was added to the list of land characteristics for which points could be awarded. (Other items in that category include parcel size, the percentage of the property with wetlands or that’s in the floodplain, and the number of natural features on the land, among other things.)

The proposal called for awarding 15 points if the farm had locally produced food and contributed to the local food economy, and zero points if it did not. Trocchio said the addition of this item emerged from the commission’s discussions on small farms, and the fact that the current scoring criteria is geared toward larger farms and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm and Ranchland Protection Program (FRPP) requirements. Awarding points for locally produced food would help level the field for smaller farms, she said. And if a larger farm also produces local food, it would score even higher, she noted.

Tom Bloomer objected to the wording of this addition. If the farm is located here, by definition it’s producing local food, he said. If the intent is to award points for food that’s consumed locally, then he didn’t believe that was a valid attribute. It implies that the program will enforce local marketing on landowners in the future, he said, and the program would be making an assumption about local food production that may not hold in 50 to 100 years. He also said he wasn’t sure what “contributing to the local food economy” means. It either needs a lot more definition, he said, or they should skip it.

Jennifer Santi Hall said she’d been the one who had suggested adding it to the scoring criteria, and that she’d welcome suggestions for change. Her intent was that the scoring criteria be consistent with their strategic plan. When they last updated the plan, they had added a section about the local food economy, she noted, and one of the action items had called for revising their scoring criteria to reflect that change.

The relevant section from the greenbelt program’s strategic plan, updated in March 2009:

Local Food or Other Crop Production

This year, the Greenbelt Advisory Commission has identified locally produced foods, agritourism, and other agricultural specialty products sold directly to local markets as an emerging issue. Our local markets, restaurants, non-profits, and most recently, the Homegrown Festival have all focused on the environmental, health, economic and community benefits of buying and selling local foods and other agricultural specialty products. In addition, we feel that a visible connection to our Greenbelt through the foods and other products that we buy and eat provides a tangible reminder of our preservation efforts. Local foods and other crops can find their way in to our Ann Arbor economy in a number of diverse ways: the Ann Arbor Farmers Market, local food stores, direct restaurant purchases from farms, U-pick farms, and even at larger chain groceries through regional food distributors.

Recognizing that the Greenbelt’s mission and direction is solely the protection of land, the Greenbelt program will make a priority to protect those farms that are producing foods for local markets. Even without this priority in our previous strategic plans, the Greenbelt program has actually preserved several farms that provide local food or other crops to the Ann Arbor area.

To date, the Greenbelt has focused on large parcels of active agriculture, however, many farms that are likely to produce vegetables or specialty crops for sale to our local markets or restaurants are likely to be less than 40 acres. Furthermore, these parcels are likely not going to qualify for Federal Farm and Ranchland Protection Program grant dollars. As such, our existing scoring system precludes these types of farms from our consideration. The Greenbelt Advisory Commission will amend our scoring system to award points to those applications that are supporting local food production or direct marketing production.

Goal

1. Amend scoring criteria to provide points for local food production.

2. The Greenbelt will evaluate and approve a partnership with one local food producer, as the opportunity arises.

[.pdf of complete greenbelt strategic plan]

The important thing, Hall said, is that when smaller farms are evaluated, there’s a way to offset the points that are awarded for large parcel size, which gives an advantage to larger farms.

Another reason, unrelated to a farm’s size, is that any farm producing food that’s sold locally is important to taxpayers who are funding the greenbelt program, Hall said. People who live in Ann Arbor and voted to pay taxes for the greenbelt did that, in part, because they felt that some of what they were preserving would come back to them, in terms of food they could consume. “That’s an important linkage to make,” she said.

She noted that the scoring criteria change over time, and the scores are based on a snapshot of time – there’s no guarantee that the land will remain the same. It’s just a way of evaluating applications at the time they’re presented, she said. The actual easement language is what secures the expectations for future land use, she added, and so far there’s no language about local food in those agreements.

Dan Ezekiel was elected vice chair of the greenbelt advisory commission at their July meeting.

Dan Ezekiel said the scoring revisions move them forward, and he thanked Trocchio for her work. He suggested changing the wording to “food for human consumption,” noting that a lot of corn and soybeans produced locally are used for livestock. That might be a difference worth making, he said.

Gil Omenn clarified that large farms could be awarded points for this too. That prompted Hall to say that she thinks the focus shouldn’t be on small farms. The focus should be on food that will be bought and consumed in Washtenaw County or Ann Arbor. Saying she liked Ezekiel’s suggestion, she noted that if a farm is growing food for livestock that’s also being raised in the county, they shouldn’t exclude that. “The important thing is that it’s happening in the local area,” she said, ” … and not going someplace else.”

Laura Rubin asked Trocchio how the staff would apply this to an actual application. Rubin noted that assessing wetlands on a property also isn’t very exact, so some of these criteria aren’t fine-tuned.

Trocchio replied that in some cases it would be clear. An example would be farms that are CSAs (community-supported agriculture), where local residents buy shares in the farm in exchange for produce. But in other cases, it would be more difficult to track, she said.

Bloomer said that so far, every single farm they’ve preserved through the greenbelt program has produced some percentage of its product for the local economy – assuming the definition of “local” includes all of Washtenaw County, not just Ann Arbor. Every farm produces something for the local food economy indirectly, he said, so every farm they’ll consider will get the 15 points. It might be producing grain or hay that’s eaten by livestock that’s eaten by people. Trying to track that would be difficult, he said. Bloomer said he was not opposed to the concept, but he wasn’t convinced that this criteria was a good approach, as it was currently worded.

Mike Garfield asked Bloomer for an example of how a local farm might produce something indirectly. Bloomer pointed to the Merkel farm – how would that be scored? They produce corn and soybeans, but a large portion of their crops are sold to the Dexter Mill, which uses it to make birdseed that’s sold locally. “Do people eat it? No, but birds eat it,” he said. “It’s a big business in Washtenaw County, and it adds a lot to our economy.”

Garfield said it’s an important and difficult issue. They seem to be trying to get a handle on two matters, he said. One is a broad concept, which he said Hall was trying to get at – the segment of farms that are developing agricultural products to be marketed locally. Over the last couple of years, the commission has been looking for ways to promote that, he said.

Then there’s a philosophical issue, he said. There’s a legitimate view that says they should be in the business of preserving land, and that land saved for farming should be the priority, regardless of where those crops get marketed. But what they were trying to do with the small farms initiative was to find ways to encourage a certain kind of business practice, he said.

If you get beyond that question, then the way they define the issue of “local food” is quite difficult – and the proposed wording doesn’t capture it, he said. Garfield said he thought they were trying to get at the notion of giving points for farm operations that sell a significant portion of their product in the local region – which he would argue should extend even beyond Washtenaw County. “I don’t have a good answer for this,” he concluded.

Hall said she was willing to take out the local food criterion, so that they could move forward on the other revisions. But she wanted to flag it for future discussion or have a small group work on the issue. It’s important to have this in the scoring criteria, she said. It would also serve to give the program more information about the types of farms they’re protecting, she added – that kind of qualitative information is important for taxpayers to know.

Hall also said that taking this approach wasn’t unfairly judging business practices. They already do that with other criteria, she said. There are points awarded for agricultural land that has preserved natural features, she noted – that gets at the kinds of farming practices that are being used.

Ezekiel described the discussion as fascinating and worthwhile, but he agreed that they hadn’t clarified their own thinking about the issue yet. He said he hoped that they were in consensus on the commission that their one and only priority is to preserve land, rather than to promote any one kind of business practice. In the small farms subcommittee, they’d discussed how the current scoring system is unintentionally skewed in favor of a certain type of business – large farms – and that they were trying to unskew it. He said he would not like to be identified as a commission that promotes a particular type of business practice.

Trocchio then reviewed revisions to the criteria for open space greenbelt acquisitions.

One question brought up by Gil Omenn during the discussion of open space criteria was why such a low point value was given for land that had proximity to Ann Arbor – two points are awarded to land located within a mile of Ann Arbor city limits.

This prompted Ezekial to give a bit of history about how the scoring criteria were initially determined, and how the point values were awarded. The criteria are outlined in the ordinance, he noted. The first group appointed to the greenbelt advisory commission – himself included – went through a process to determine how many points to award to each criterion, by determining a rank order of the items. The end result: Criteria that few people thought were important were given low point values, he said, adding that maybe it’s time to revise the numerical values.

Rubin asked whether they were obligated to include the ordinance’s criteria in the scoring. Trocchio said she’d check.

Hall said she felt that proximity to Ann Arbor had been important when the vote was taken. She’d be hesitant to delete it. Garfield expressed surprise that it only got two points. Omenn said he felt it deserved substantially more. That was the problem with rank ordering, he added. If the item came out last in the ranking, then it would get very few points – and not necessarily what it was worth.

Outcome: The revised scoring criteria – minus the item on local food – was approved unanimously.

Election of Officers

Laura Rubin noted that she has served as chair for two years. She said that Jennifer S. Hall had expressed interest in being chair and that Dan Ezekiel was interested in being vice chair. Rubin moved those two nominations, and there were no others. Rubin received a round of applause for her service.

Outcome: The commission unanimously elected Hall as chair and Ezekiel as vice chair.

Staff, Commissioner Updates

Ginny Trocchio of The Conservation Fund reported on several items. The greenbelt program had applied for funding in February 2010 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm and Ranchland Protection Program (FRPP) for two properties, and had just received word that they have received grants on both: $418,470 for the 146-acre Whitney farm in Webster Township, and $260,910 for the 96-acre Honke property in Northfield Township.

[City council has already approved greenbelt purchase of development rights (PDR) for both properties. The city will spend a total of $707,122 on the Whitney farm and $457,357 for the Honke property.]

Trocchio also reported that at the end of June, the city submitted an application to the FRPP program through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative for $1.3 million. She expects to hear about that award in August or September.

Also, Ann Arbor Township recently closed on a deal for the Zeeb property, Trocchio said, adjacent to the Kapp farm. She noted that the greenbelt program had been a partner in the Kapp purchase as well as the Zeeb deal, and that the properties are forming a nice block of preserved land along Nixon Road and Pontiac Trial.

They were expecting about 30 people on their first annual greenbelt bus tour, Trocchio said, which would leave from the Ann Arbor farmers market and travel to several locations highlighting land preserved by the program, as well as partnerships and elements of the greenbelt’s strategic plan. [The tour took place on Saturday, July 17.]

Communications from Commissioners

Dan Ezekiel pointed out that Ann Arbor continues to garner the lion’s share of agricultural funding that comes to Michigan, thanks to taxpayers approving greenbelt money to match those federal funds, and thanks to the program’s superb staff.

Tom Bloomer gave a report from last month’s Breakfast on the Farm event, held at the Horning family dairy farm in western Washtenaw County. He described it as a tremendous success, with 2,400 people attending – many of them from Ann Arbor. “We didn’t run out of food, but it was close,” he said. There were demonstrations of food production – including cows being milked – to show people who might not be aware of how powerful and important agriculture is in this county, Bloomer said. He described the farm as one of the premier dairy farms in the Midwest and even the country – not huge, but sophisticated and well run.

Mike Garfield noted that the Washtenaw County board of commissioners, at their next meeting on Aug. 4, plan to take up the millage renewal for the county’s natural areas preservation program (NAPP). He said that the greenbelt program has partnered with NAPP on many occasions. The county board recently amended the NAPP ordinance to make its funds more usable for agricultural easement transactions, he said, so there might be more opportunities for partnering with them in the future. [See Chronicle coverage: "Washtenaw Natural Areas Tweaked for Ballot"] Garfield said they’d be keeping their fingers crossed on the fortunes of that program.

Jennifer S. Hall noted that the greenbelt commission had passed a resolution in support of the NAPP millage at its February 2010 meeting. She asked whether there would be a public hearing at the county board – if so, it might be imporatnt for the greenbelt commission to have a presence there, she said.

Motions Made Following Closed Session

The commission went into closed session to discuss land acquisition deals, and emerged about an hour later. They quickly passed five resolutions, without discussion, recommending greenbelt purchases to be forwarded to city council. Until the council approves these deals, the properties are identified only by their application number. If they are all approved, the acquisitions would amount to $2,947,905.

The motions recommended:

• making an offer of $1,247,000 for the purchase of development rights on a farm, if FRPP grant funds are awarded. If no FRPP funds are awarded but there’s at least a 20% match from other sources, it’s recommended that council move forward with the purchase.
• making an offer of $655,400 for the purchase of development rights on a farm, if FRPP grant funds are awarded. If no FRPP funds are awarded but there’s at least a 20% match from other sources, it’s recommended that council move forward with the purchase.
• making an offer of $725,000 for the purchase of development rights on a farm, if FRPP grant funds are awarded. If no FRPP funds are awarded but there’s at least a 20% match from other sources, it’s recommended that council move forward with the purchase.
• making an offer of $139,200 for a property, due to its adjacency to other greenbelt properties and the landowner’s willingness to donate 20% of the purchase price.
• contributing $181,305 toward the purchase of development rights of a Webster Township property, in partnership with Webster Township.

All of these items will be forwarded to city council for final approval.

Present: Laura Rubin, Jennifer Santi Hall, Peter Allen, Dan Ezekiel, Mike Garfield, Tom Bloomer, Gil Omenn, Catherine Riseng

Absent: Carsten Hohnke

Next meeting: Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2010 at 4:30 p.m. at the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners boardroom, 220 N. Main, Ann Arbor. [confirm date]

A hoop house at Sunseed Farm, northwest of Ann Arbor. (Photo by Marianne Rzepka.)

To date, that hasn’t been an issue for most parcels in the program, which are fairly large – more than 40 acres. But as the greenbelt advisory commission (GAC) considers ways to support small farms – in the 15-20 acre range – some challenges have emerged. A farm of that size with hoop houses, for example, might easily result in covering more than 2% of the land.

During the public portion of this month’s GAC meeting, commissioners discussed how to address this and other issues that might require modifying the language in conservation easements for the city’s greenbelt program. Also addressed were strategies to ensure that the land stays in agriculture for future generations.

No action was taken at the June 9 meeting, and comments from commissioners indicate there’s also no clear consensus yet for how to handle this relatively new greenbelt focus.

Conservation Easement: Tailored to Small Farms

A subcommittee on small farms has been working on these issues for about a year. That group includes GAC commissioners Tom Bloomer, a Webster Township farmer; Dan Ezekiel, an Ann Arbor teacher and environmentalist; and Mike Garfield, director of the Ecology Center, an Ann Arbor nonprofit.

At GAC’s November 2009 meeting, commissioners addressed the topic as well, and heard from Jennifer L. Hall, housing manager for the joint city/county office of community development, who outlined some ideas for how federal funding might provide resources to retain land for the farming community.

This month, Ginny Trocchio of The Conservation Fund, who serves as staff for the greenbelt program under a contract with the city, presented more detailed options for possible conservation easements designed for small farms. In general, conservation easements limit the amount of development that can be done on the site, in exchange for certain tax benefits.

The farmland that’s been protected under Ann Arbor’s greenbelt program has consisted of fairly large parcels, in order to qualify for matching funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm and Ranchland Protection Program, or FRPP. Easement agreements stipulate that no more than 2% of the land can be covered by impervious surfaces. Hoop houses – structures covered with plastic that allow farmers to extend their growing seasons by farming under the shelter – are considered impervious surfaces, Trocchio said. Because hoop houses are often used by smaller farms, the small farms subcommittee has been exploring ways that the easement agreements might be changed to accommodate them.

The subcommittee met with several owners of small local farms, Trocchio reported, including Shannon Brines of Brines Farm in Dexter and Tomm Becker of Sunseed Farm, northwest of Ann Arbor. Based on their feedback, one possible approach is to separate out permanent and non-permanent structures, and to allow non-permanent structures – such hoop houses – to cover up to 20% of the acreage. That would allow the easement to keep the permanent impervious percentage at 2%.

The general goal is to protect the soil, Trocchio said. With that in mind, non-permanent structures could be defined as “structures where the soil surface is not disturbed, including, but not limited to, hoop houses and farm structures without a floor or alterations to the soils such as gravel or concrete paths.”

Another possible concern centers on what happens if a small farm is sold to a new owner who isn’t interested in farming. Easements limit what can be done on the land, Trocchio noted, but don’t currently require that certain types of activities – like farming – must be done. So it would be possible for a new owner to simply use the land as an estate, rather than a small farm. The land would continue to be protected from development, but it wouldn’t serve the greenbelt program’s original goal – namely, supporting small farms.

Trocchio described some research done by the American Farmland Trust, which evaluated agricultural easement programs nationwide. The nonprofit reported that in some regions, farmland with conservation easements was being resold at rates that weren’t affordable for farmers. However, the land would often be kept in farming anyway, with the owner leasing it to farmers for specialty crops or for horse farms.

Trocchio also outlined the work of a Massachusetts nonprofit called Equity Trust, which has been exploring options to help land trusts keep farmland affordable for farmers. One possibility – a very new option for land trusts, Trocchio noted – would be to include language in the conservation easement stating that the land must be sold to a qualified farmer. The definition of a qualified farmer is someone who earns a certain stipulated percentage of their income from farming. If such a buyer couldn’t be found, then the entity holding the easement would have the right to purchase the land, and sell it to a farmer at a later date.

The advantages to this approach would be that there’s more control to keep the land in farming, Trocchio said. But there are several possible disadvantages too. For one, it would create an increased responsibility for the entity that holds the easement – for the greenbelt program, that entity is the city of Ann Arbor. If GAC was interested in pursuing this option, they’d need to check state statutes, to make sure it would be possible. Trocchio also pointed out that it might be too soon to know what the future of farming will be in this area, so it’s hard to say if this is even a concern.

There were several other options discussed by GAC’s small farm subcommittee that could be used to support small farms, Trocchio said. The commission could choose to give priority to greenbelt applications for small farms, prioritizing either by the length of time that the farmer has been on the land, or by the length of time that the land has been used for farming. Trocchio said another option is to give priority to small farms adjacent to larger farms that are already protected under the greenbelt program.

Trocchio said the subcommittee wasn’t making a recommendation at this point. She said the staff could start working with the city attorney’s office to check state statutes and craft easement language that would give the city the option to purchase farmland, but that wouldn’t make it mandatory. They could then bring back a proposal for the subcommittee and GAC to review. Trocchio also noted that there’s an amendment clause in the conservation easement agreements that would allow the city to change easements in the future.

Commissioner Questions & Comments: Keeping Land as Farmland

Jennifer S. Hall began by saying she wasn’t sure she understood the issue related to small farms being transferred to new owners in the future. Why would they be concerned more about small farms going out of production, compared to large farms?

Peg Kohring of The Conservation Fund said that small farms, because of the size of the parcel, would be more attractive to someone who just wants to have a home with a lot of land. And because of the conservation easement, which limits development, the land would be available at a relatively low price, she said. In general, smaller parcels sell more easily than larger parcels.

Hall asked whether that was a fact, or just an assumption. Kohring responded that if there’s a small parcel available at lower-than-market rates, because of the easement, she couldn’t imagine that it wouldn’t be attractive for someone interested in having an estate, given this community and the desire to have land.

But once the easement is in place, Hall said, it wasn’t clear what the risk was, compared to any other property in the greenbelt. With an easement, it wouldn’t be available for development.

Tom Bloomer jumped in, saying that the concern is that the land would no longer be meeting the original goal of contributing to local food production. For those parcels, it’s not simply the preservation of the land, he said. The first owner would meet that goal, because they’d apply to the greenbelt and be accepted in virtue of their farming operation. But if the farmer later decided to sell the land to a homeowner who simply wanted a big yard, then the city would have squandered its resources to buy a conservation easement that no longer met its goals.

Hall said it seemed like they were adding another layer of difficulty, and she didn’t understand why. Bloomer replied that the smaller parcels might be susceptible to different kinds of pressures than large farms are. That could be especially true if they’re located in areas where there’s already residential development. He added that there was uncertainty, however, because the greenbelt didn’t yet have experience in protecting small farms.

Trocchio pointed out that current easements stipulate what can’t be done, not what must be done. They’re not saying that small farms are more likely to go out of business, she added. They’re just trying to protect the land for the next generation.

Kohring suggested that the staff provide more information to commissioners about these options. Laura Rubin, GAC’s chair, clarified that the commission wouldn’t be taking any action at this time.

Gil Omenn asked Trocchio to share more details about the feedback they’d heard from local farmers. Trocchio said that representatives from Ann Arbor Township had also attended the subcommittee meeting. The township has its own small farm initiative. From the township’s website:

The Township’s Small Farm Initiative (SFI) endeavors to link landowners, producers and markets, and can utilize its Purchase of Development Rights program to assist in reducing the cost of land acquisition. Support for the project is provided by a three-year grant from the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program.

The primary outcome of the SFI is to establish small farms producing for regional markets using purchase of development rights (PDR) to reduce land costs, improve farm profitability and preserve farmland in a near-urban setting. Ann Arbor Township, with its proximity to the City of Ann Arbor and its ample open space and farmland, is an ideal location for this initiative.

In the short term, the SFI has identified interested landowners and can introduce them to prospective farmers so that both can learn about opportunities to work together and establish small farming operations. In the intermediate term, those relationships will be established and farmers will be encouraged to seek guidance in formulating sound business plans to meet market demands. The long-term outcomes (third year and beyond) will be to have established several operations and to share the results and lessons of our work with others in the immediate region, before reaching out to southeast Michigan, the entire state and beyond.

This project is being viewed as a demonstration for other communities interested in agricultural profitability, land use at the urban/rural interface and local food production. It is expected that new relationships will be created, small farm operations will be established, more local food and other produce will enter the marketplace and lessons will be learned to provide insight and establish the area as a center for innovative approaches to preserving farmland.

Trocchio said that the township’s program is proposing that farmers provide a business plan, and notify the township if there are any changes to that plan. The local farmers who attended the GAC subcommittee meeting expressed concern about sharing proprietary information that might be in a business plan. They were also concerned about the township’s level of involvement in their business, she said.

Dan Ezekiel said that there was pretty wide consensus among both growers and land preservation agencies that there should be a business plan to look at. He said he was struck by the fact that small farmers had the same concerns as large growers regarding easements – they were concerned about restrictions.

Trocchio said the Vermont Land Trust has been using “softer” language in its easements, giving the trust the option to buy land in order to keep it as active farmland, but not making the purchase mandatory. Omenn said that buying land wasn’t attractive to him – the city isn’t in the business of purchasing property, he said. Trocchio clarified that it wasn’t the intent to keep the property, but rather to provide a way to hold the land temporarily until a buyer who’d be interested in farming can be found.

Bloomer said his own view is that restrictive language isn’t the best approach, in terms of putting the city in the position of buying property. He said the subcommittee’s parting thoughts had been that they might try two or three deals with small farms, realizing that they might make some mistakes along the way. But since they wouldn’t be huge deals, he said, it wouldn’t be the end of the world if they didn’t get it quite right the first time.

Hall said it seemed like an easement on a small farm might create a new type of market for small growers. So the greenbelt program might be helping that type of business in the future, because the land already has an easement and is set up for that type of agriculture. Anyone who invests in setting up a small farm would likely want to see that same type of business exist there in the future, she said. Has that been true in other areas?

Trocchio said that this approach is very new, and there aren’t many examples of areas that are trying it. Those that are, she said, are grappling with the same issues.

Commissioner Questions & Comments: Impervious Surfaces

Rubin asked whether the subcommittee wanted GAC to take action related to impervious surfaces and non-permanent structures. Had there been consensus on the subcommittee that allowing 20% for non-permanent structures was a good move? Bloomer said there was far more consensus on that than on the other issue.

There was some discussion about whether to act on the suggestion to change the easement language for small farms to include the 20% stipulation for non-permanent structures. Bloomer noted that for large farms that are eligible for FRPP funding, easements can’t include that language because of federal requirements. Instead of making it specific to small farms, he suggested that the language regarding non-permanent structures could be optional, and added to the easement when appropriate. He also said he’d be more comfortable if they worked on a draft of the wording and brought it back for consideration at GAC’s July meeting. Other commissioners agreed to that approach.

Kohring had indicated that there was one farmer waiting for a decision from GAC on these issues before applying to the greenbelt program. Rubin asked her to convey GAC’s intention to act at the July meeting.

In addition to the small farms discussion, the commission spent nearly an hour in closed session to discuss issues related to land acquisition.

Present: Laura Rubin (chair), Jennifer Santi Hall (vice-chair), Peter Allen, Dan Ezekiel, Tom Bloomer, Gil Omenn

Absent: Mike Garfield, Carsten Hohnke, Catherine Riseng

Next meeting: Wednesday, July 14, 2010 at 4:30 p.m. at the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners boardroom, 220 N. Main, Ann Arbor. [confirm date] In addition, a greenbelt bus tour is scheduled for Saturday, July 17, 2010, departing from the Ann Arbor Farmers market at 11 a.m. and returning at 1 p.m. The cost is $15 and pre-registration is requested by July 10. To register, contact Ginny Trocchio at 734-794-6000 ext. 42798 or email gltrocchio@a2gov.org.

Marianne Rzepka

Tomm Becker hasn’t been afraid of a spring frost killing the lettuce, tomatoes, cilantro, kale and chard he’s growing at Sunseed Farm.

That’s because he’s growing them under the plastic cover of a 30-by-96-foot hoop house, which since last fall has been a source of vegetables through most of the winter.

Hoop houses let the sun in, and the solar-powered heat warms up the soil and keeps tender plants from freezing in early and late frosts. When a strong wind flapped the hoop house cover at Sunseed Farm last week, it blew through the openings where the plastic had been hoisted to provide ventilation. The day before had brought cold temperatures and heavy rains that flooded the nearby rye field, so the side flaps had been down to keep the heat in.

“The great thing (about hoop houses) is you can control everything,” Becker says.

Hoop houses aren’t just for farms – a backyard hoop house can give anyone a head start on the season. Then even into the winter, you can grow some cold weather crops – like lettuce – or store root crops, like carrots.

But like anything else in your garden – ponds, chickens, a compost pile – a hoop house is a project that never stops.

Small Farms, Year-Round Local Produce

The Sunseed Farm hoop house is working so well for Tomm and Trilby Becker that they’ll be getting another one in about a week at their farm off Joy Road, just northwest of Ann Arbor. In time, they want to have about five hoop houses to grow a variety of vegetables throughout most of the year for members of their CSA (community-supported agriculture) program.

The Beckers’ hoop house, along with several others in the area, were built with microloans from Repasts, Present and Future, an organization run by Lisa Gottlieb and Jeff McCabe to support local farmers. [Much of their funding comes from donations raised during their weekly breakfast salon – Friday Mornings @ SELMA – held at their home on Ann Arbor's west side and featuring local chefs and locally produced food.]

With hoop houses, says Gottlieb, a local farm can produce food for most of the year. “For our climate, hoop houses are really something terrific,” she says.

Hoop houses allow you to control, to some degree, the microclimate within the structure. When the sun is shining and the temperature is going up, you can open the vents to cool down the heat that can easily climb to more than 100 degrees, even in the winter. And when the heat increases, the humidity also builds up. After a while, the plants just can’t breathe, Tomm Becker says.

Of course, there are things that are beyond anyone’s control. During the winter, clouds and cold – along with the shorter daylight hours – will keep pretty much anything from growing. “In late December and January,” says Becker, “everything is pretty much in stasis.”

The trick is to plan ahead, planting crops late in the past season that can be picked in the dead of winter, he says.

It’s also tough to control what gets into that hoop house, which can be a warm and comfortable place for greens-eating critters – like mice and voles – during the winter. And some insects, like aphids, will find a warm, moist hoop house their idea of heaven. Moisture also is a wonderful medium for growing fungi, which is not good unless you’re raising mushrooms.

Backyard Hoop Houses

If you’re interested in simply feeding yourself and your family, you might be able to get by with a 1,500-square-foot hoop house, says John Hochstetler, who has four hoop houses that provide about 6,000 square feet of space for growing vegetables and flowers for the market. It can even be pretty cheap, he says, if you save your own seeds.

The first thing to do is figure out what you want in a hoop house. “If you don’t know what you’re doing,” says Hochstetler, “it’s going to be a big mess.”

Get some good materials, including heavy duty plastic and a framework that will stand up. Hochstetler’s first hoop house was built with plans he found online, and PVC piping from a big box store. The first heavy snowfall smashed his work flatter than a bug. Lesson learned, Hochstetler now builds his hoop houses with steel frames.

If you’d like to start with something a little smaller, Ann Arbor architect Dave Sebolt has designed a hoop house measuring roughly 12-by-12 feet that costs about $200 to build. And it’s got a shape that will keep the snow load from building up.

“The one I put together has a little roundedness on the top,” Sebolt says. “It gets into a 40-degree slope, more a parabolic arch. If the angle is 45 degrees or steeper, the snow will slide off.” (Click here to download a copy of his plans.)

He also found that snow piled around the base of the structure might cause the ribs to collapse at the ground level. His solution is to simply clear that snow away. It might also help to mulch along the base or use foam to keep out the critters.

Sebolt also suggests that hoop house builders stretch the side plastic down into the ground, to better anchor the structure against any winds that might tip it over or fly it off to Oz.

There are advantages to larger hoop houses. Smaller structures can overheat quickly. Larger ones also can overheat, but it will take longer. By the same token, larger structures will take longer to cool, which keeps frost off from the plants more effectively.

No matter what the size or the season, you’ll have to keep an eye on the temperature. Sebolt recommends using heat pistons that expand with the heat to open ventilation windows and contract when the temperature cools, so that the windows close.

The heat/cold, moisture and sun principles are the same whether you’ve got a commercial-size hoop house, a portable cold frame that fits over a single bed or something as simple as a glass bell jar or the bottom of a plastic milk carton.

I don’t have anything like a hoop house in my yard, because the space is just too small. But I might be able to use something like a cold frame, which is just a wooden box with a cover that lets in light and keeps frost away from transplants.

They can be small, portable and much cheaper than a full-fledged hoop house. You could put a 5-by-10-foot cold frame together for as little as $25 if you use recycled materials – using an old shower door for the top of the cold frame, for example. Ann Arbor’s ReUse Center or Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore are great places to look for what you need.

About the writer: Marianne Rzepka, former reporter for the Ann Arbor News and Detroit Free Press, is a Master Gardener who lives in Ann Arbor and thinks it’s fun to turn the compost pile.