Cabarrus County has a bumper crop of initiatives designed to connect local food growers with local consumers.

Steering those efforts is the county's Food Policy Council, which is identifying and strengthening connections between food, health, natural resource protection, economic development and the agricultural community in the county.

A year-long countywide food assessmentdetails current food production, processing, distribution and marketing channels of the food system in the county.

On of the county's signature initiatives is the Elma C. Lomax Incubator Farm, which opened in 2009 on 30 acres in Concord. The incubator gives fledgling farmers a chance to hone their skills under the eyes of trained professionals. The farm, operated by Cabarrus County and the North Carolina Cooperative Extension, allots individuals interested in eventually starting a part-time or full-time farming business a small patch of land. They then receive classroom instruction and hands-on experience. The future farmers learn about food quality, food safety, nutrition, water conservation and waste management.

“We also help future farmers learn about business plans and production models, so we can keep farming as a growing concern in Cabarrus County,” says Debbie Bost, county extension director.

Plenty to Root For

A total of 16 beginning farmers are now learning to grow organic crops, while nearly 80 people are on a waiting list to train at the Lomax incubator. The prospective farmers are allowed to grow crops for three years at Lomax, then must move their operation off the property to allow others to cycle into the program.

“The Lomax program allows potential farmers to learn about farming without having to spend $250,000 of their own money to buy 10 acres and a tractor,” says Aaron Newton, local food system program coordinator for Cabarrus County.

Keep It Local

Cabarrus County has a full menu of locally grown food initiatives on the table, and the 23-member Food Policy Council is playing a lead role in steering them. The Cabarrus County Board of Commissioners implemented the Food Policy Council in May 2010; one of its first efforts is a comprehensive year-long assessment of virtually every food aspect in the county.

“The study will show what the people of Cabarrus County are eating, how much of their food is grown in Cabarrus County, where our other grown food is being shipped, and so forth," Newton says. "A local food economy will ideally pay your neighbor to grow food for you – not pay someone around the world to grow food for you.”

No Hormones or Steroids

The county is already home to a number of organic farming operations, such such as Creekside Farms, owned by Chad and Faith VonCannon, both Concord natives. Today, Creekside Farms, located just north of Mt. Pleasant, raises and sells all-natural, grass-fed beef, pasture-raised pork, chicken, turkeys and brown eggs without added hormones, steroids or antibiotics, and sells the products at farmers' markets and at the farm by appointment.

Another local initiative involves plans to transform the current Cruse Meat Processing retail facility in Concord into a $1.2 million beef harvesting facility. Newton says having a slaughterhouse in Cabarrus County will save local cattle farmers from having to make long, multi-hour trips to regional slaughterhouses, as is the case now.

“Cabarrus County has 7,000 head of cattle, making it the largest farm commodity here,” Newton says. “To have a local harvest facility that will humanely slaughter and process beef would not only save farmers money, but meat prices would be lowered for local consumers. It would be another example of how it helps everyone to have a local food economy.”