Funds Permitting, County Plans a '50s-Style Working Farm

Calvert County is applying for state funding to develop a plan for a sustainable working farm on the Biscoe Gray Reserve that would also be a learning center for residents.

Planners presented a proposal to the county commissioners last week that attempts to establish a framework for Calvert's agricultural future. That plan includes developing a 1950s-style farm that could be used to educate the community on sustainable farming.

Officials want "to see how it could work as an educational opportunity for children in the county," said Kirsti Uunila, historic preservation planner for the county. She said the county would like to partner with the school system and Calvert's Natural Resources Division on the project.

Planners are seeking $40,000 from the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority to begin preliminary plans and feasibility studies for the experimental learning farm, on the property off Grays Road south of Prince Frederick. Battle Creek Nature Education Society is the official grant applicant.

"It is almost a joke, but it happens in reality: You ask kids, 'Where does milk come from?' or 'Where do eggs come from?' and they will tell you the grocery store," said Dwight Williams, chief of the Natural Resources Division. "Part of this is to get them in touch with where the food originates."

Williams said the program has the "potential for certainly making a difference," in the same way that the CHESPAX environmental science program in Calvert County schools has had an impact, using the Chesapeake Bay and Patuxent River as living laboratories for students.

The state grant would be matched with $30,000 already budgeted for the 206-acre Biscoe Gray property, which was preserved in 2002 with Rural Legacy funds, and $10,000 of in-kind contributions in the form of volunteer hours and staff time.

More than 80 acres of the property are fields that have been rented by farmers in the recent past, Greg Bowen, director of the Department of Planning and Zoning, said in an earlier interview. He said reworking some of that land as a 1950s-style farm would show the independence of farming.

"Farmers in the '50s did lots of things. They were not specialty farmers, just raising cattle or just raising grain. They did it all" -- poultry, gardens, grains and more, said Bowen.

He said educating the community is one way to support agricultural growth in the county.

Carter Gray's great-grandfather originally owned the farm, which is named after one of his grandfather's three brothers. The farm was passed down through his family before a cousin sold the land to the county for preservation. Gray, 48, said he supported the county's idea.

"It would be good to have the people that have moved into the county [and who are not] acclimated with the farming have a place to go to see how it used to be," Gray said. "I'm glad to hear that."

The Biscoe Gray Reserve also has funds set aside to construct horse trails along the tree lines. The cost of that project is estimated at more than $350,000, with a projected start date in fiscal 2010. The engineering design for the trails must still be completed, county officials said.

Commissioner Linda L. Kelley (R-At Large) said that the trails' funding is not affected by the farm proposal and should be maintained for the growing county's equine community.

The trails "skirt the fields," said Kelley, referring to an earlier feasibility study. "I don't see any competition for use of the property. . . . I think they will complement each other."

Commissioners President Wilson H. Parran (D-Huntingtown) said the county would continue to look for "other opportunities to get funds to sustain agriculture in Calvert County."