The Churning Point
Bobby Prigel says building an organic creamery will keep his farm alive. But preservationists say it will spoil the rural landscape.

By Jane Black
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 1, 2008

GLEN ARM, Md. -- Bobby Prigel seems like a poster child for the local-food movement. A fourth-generation dairy farmer, he wants to build a creamery to make organic butter, yogurt, cheese and ice cream. He wants to sell those products to consumers in nearby Baltimore instead of shipping his milk out of state. He wants to make enough money to pass on the farm to a fifth generation.

But some neighbors and conservationists are challenging Prigel's plans. Opponents, led by the Long Green Valley Association, say zoning rules prohibit his proposed 10,000-square-foot creamery and retail shop among the rolling hills of Long Green Valley, a designated rural conservation area. They also are suing the Prigel family's Bellevale Farm and a Maryland state preservation agency, arguing that preservation easements on the land prohibit Prigel from processing milk on his farm.

The case has pitted neighbor against neighbor and raised broad questions about the definition of agriculture. Does a creamery that makes butter and cheese qualify as farming or as manufacturing? And how much say should neighbors have in how farmers farm?

All 50 states have so-called right-to-farm laws, intended to discourage nuisance lawsuits from unhappy neighbors. But across the country, clashes are becoming increasingly common. Demand for local food has encouraged small farmers to ramp up production, which can result in more noise, dust, machinery and, if livestock are involved, unpleasant smells. The problem could grow as more farmers, like Prigel, turn to higher-margin foods such as cheese and jam that require processing. Their new mantra: If life gives you lemons, make $10-a-jar lemon curd.

In nearby Sparks, Md., farmer David Smith has been locked in a nearly two-year battle with neighbors over his proposal to open a retail shop for his pasture-raised meat. In Florida, surburbanites have sparred with citrus farmers over dust and pesticide sprays. In New Jersey, state agriculture officials this year published a 29-page brochure, "Farmer-to-Farmer Advice for Avoiding Conflicts With Neighbors and Towns," that reads like a 10 Commandments of neighborly behavior. (Under the heading "Get to know your neighbors," one farmer advises smiling at children when riding on a tractor: "It's like a parade for them.")

The Prigel family has farmed in Long Green Valley, a designated national historic district, for more than a century. Today, the 260-acre farm is home to about 180 dairy cows. In April, the farm became the only certified organic dairy in Baltimore County. The family sells milk to Horizon Organic, which transports it to a processing plant in Buffalo, then sells it under the Horizon label.

In the past, Prigel, 46, had sold his milk to a Virginia co-op. But it was increasingly difficult to make ends meet. Production costs crept up annually; the price of milk did not. The past several years have been a struggle, Prigel says. In 2007, the year the farm made the costly transition to organic, Bellevale Farm reported a loss of $103,000.

The creamery plan is "a do-or-die thing," he says. "If it doesn't work, we'll sell the farm."

Farmers across the state have faced similar hardships. The number of Maryland dairy farms fell from 6,700 in 1965 to 587 in 2007. Those that remain continue to struggle. Dale Johnson, a farm specialist at the University of Maryland, says that between 2005 and 2007, the average Maryland dairy farmer earned $68,500 a year. (Johnson has written a letter in support of Prigel.)

Urbanites' love affair with local and organic food offered a solution. Baltimore is just 30 minutes away. Prigel reasoned that by cutting out the middleman and producing butter and cheese, he could return his small farm to profitability. "If you are going to stay small, you need to add value to your product. Otherwise you're competing with someone with 5,000 cows in Idaho," says Kenneth Bailey, an associate professor of dairy and market policy at Penn State University.

In spring 2007, Prigel wrote a business plan that he says included a creamery to pasteurize and process his herd's 500-gallon-per-day production. He planned to make butter and ice cream and, originally, rent space to Cowgirl Creamery, which wanted to make cheese on the East Coast. (Prigel later discovered that zoning rules prohibit a farmer from leasing space. He says he now plans to make the cheese himself.)

Prigel says he ran the idea past Baltimore County agriculture and preservation boards and state preservation officials, who gave the initial green light. He submitted a proposal for a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant and received a promise of a $250,000 low-interest loan from the county. Prigel also says he showed the plan and an aerial photo of where the building would be placed to the Long Green Valley Association. On Sept. 27, 2007, the association wrote a letter in support of the Prigel creamery.

"What they are doing is good for the environment. It's good for the locals," says Steve Weber, owner of nearby Cider Mill Farm and a past president of the Maryland Farm Bureau. "This couldn't be a better example of what you want to see."

Association members say they were misled, however, and on March 24 they withdrew their support. The group says Prigel did not have all the permissions in place, as he had claimed. It also maintains that the project is larger and more industrial than what he originally described.

Take the placement of the building. The creamery is across the street from the Prigels' barn, which means milk will have to be trucked there. That, opponents say, will result in intensive water use (the tankers must be washed and sanitized after each delivery) and require a large paved area for the trucks to dock and turn around. It also opens the possibility that the creamery could accept deliveries from other regional farms, they say, turning it from a small production facility into a factory.

More broadly, the group objects to the idea of processing milk into new products, which it sees as a commercial, not an agricultural, operation. Commercial activity has been prohibited on the Prigel farm since 1997, when the family placed 180 acres into an easement held by the Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation. In exchange for payments totaling $796,500, the easement requires that the land be used for agricultural purposes only. The group's lawsuit says the preservation agency is failing to follow its own rules.

"This is not a farming plan on his part. This is an opportunistic move," says Ed Blanton, a neighbor and former association president. "And they want to do it on preserved land. That's what has everyone up in arms."

The case has divided the valley. Tempers have flared. Some neighbors can no longer look one another in the eye. Others fear speaking out or publicly taking sides.

Though the details are complicated, the two sides have whittled and spun the stories into two narratives. Friends of the Prigels say the creamery is being held up by a cabal of rich people who don't want their view spoiled. Opponents say the Prigels are stealthily commercializing the land they've been paid to protect.

"I don't know how to describe it," says Susan Yoder, one of the lead plaintiffs in the association's lawsuit, scheduled to be heard in November in Baltimore County circuit court. Her husband's family has lived in the valley since 1854 and, until now, has worked regularly with the Prigels. "People are afraid to say things to one another. People whisper, 'Which way are you going?' "

Even those who don't know the Prigels are torn: "I don't blame farmers for wanting to make more, but I'm in an association for preservation. There are other places you can do what he wants to do," says Carol Trela, the association's secretary.

Local media have pounced on the case, bringing it to the attention of a broader audience.

Stephen Belkoff, who lives three miles away, had never met the Prigels. But he was so incensed that he offered to hold a fundraiser for the family, whose legal fees to date top $60,000. "The reason we have this preservation land conservancy is to keep farmers on the farm," Belkoff says. "I want a viable local food source. We need to manufacture stuff in our own back yard."

Initially, Belkoff says, he expected no more than 200 people for the Labor Day weekend event. As word about the fundraiser spread, plans became more ambitious. Local farmers donated a whole pig, hundreds of hamburgers and hot dogs and dozens of pies. Belkoff says more than 600 people showed up to support the Prigels. Opponents counter that no more than 150 people attended. The party raised $25,000.

Legal wrangling is expected to continue for months. And local farmers are watching carefully. Sparks farmer David Smith has spent $30,000 to defend his proposal to build a 30-by-60-foot store and parking area for nine cars. Neighbors object, saying the structure is too big to qualify as a "roadside stand," which is all that zoning laws permit.

Smith says he expects to see a growing number of farmer-neighbor clashes. "All these people have moved from the city, and they want to see the area stay rural," he says. "But if you don't let farmers be farmers and market their products, which is the most profitable method for small farmers to continue to exist, then it becomes a development."

The county zoning office has ruled twice in the Prigels' favor: once to allow the market, once to approve the creamery operation. Deputy Zoning Commissioner Thomas Bostwick rejected opponents' argument that the production of milk, cheese and other foods is not permitted in a rural conservation zone. The opponents take "too narrow a view of the zoning regulations in order to suit their own interpretation of those regulations, and to bootstrap their view of how the Prigels should conduct their dairying business," he wrote in an Aug. 12 decision.

The Long Green Valley Association has appealed both zoning decisions. The association is also moving forward with its suit against the land preservation foundation.

In the meantime, Prigel says he will continue to plan and build the creamery "until the money runs out." He predicts that his view of sustainable agriculture will prevail. "We're protective of the land, too," Prigel says. "It's why we want to keep farming."