What's on the Horizon?

When the Horizon Organic Dairy decided over a year ago to leave its digs in Gambrills, site of the Naval Academy's old dairy farm, it left an 875-acre bucolic, rural site in the midst of suburban sprawl. Now, the Naval Academy is looking for new tenants. Predictably, even before the last udder has fully dried, ballfields advocates have jumped on the idea of turning "at least 300 acres" into athletic fields. Surely, ballfields are better than a bumper crop of McMansions, but in a rare occurrence indeed, both Executive Owens and Councilman Bill Burlison (D-Crofton) are on the right side of this issue, trying to keep it as farmland. According to the Capital article, Owens would like to see the land remain as farm, and Burlison waxed poetically that, "There are so few (farms) left in Anne Arundel county, for one thing ... The beauty and glory of that acreage. I go by frequently, and it's a gorgeous layout, really spacial beauty."

Why not keep the farm, that is either already certified organic, or very close to being so, as a rural-business/agricultural incubator. There are still thousands of acres of farmland in the County, and hundreds of farmers trying to make a living. The Naval Academy site could be an ideal location to train current farmers, as well as the next generation of farmers, in how to farm organically, as well as produce valued-added agricultural products so that they can keep their own farms profitable. As a frequent visitor to County Farmer's Markets, I'm a firm believer that this is a part of our heritage that we must protect for a variety of reasons, above and beyond the obvious culinary ones.