Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 4 · column 1 of 6 · from the scan, no model involved
Thanksgiving is a holiday of appreciation—appreciation for the bounty from our acres of rich farmland. Throughout Rappahannock County corn is cut, barns are filled with hay, silos are brimming and bushels of apple fill the cold storage to overflowing. The harvest season is over for another year.
While we pause to give thanks, it seems appropriate to recognize that harvest time in Virginia may soon be over for good if steps aren’t taken to reverse the trend that sees thousands of acres of agricultural land taken out of production every year. At a special hearing in Leesburg last week, farmers from a dozen counties testified before three General Assembly subcommittees. They told of property taxes
totallir-j^'\)00 JO a year on one of the four remaining dairy farms in Fairfax County, of the staggering increase in the number of subdivided lots in Warren, of fears that agriculture may disappear from Loudoun and Fauquier Counties, of the battle to retain farming in Prince William County where the average age of farmers is now almost 70 years.
The farmers were critical of inadequacies in Virginia's efforts to encourage farming—enabling legislation that allows localities to adopt use value taxation and establish agricultural and forestal districts. These pieces of legislation, along with a proposed bill to allow limited purchase of development rights under an Agriculture Land Preservation Foundation, were described as “helpful tools" and “steps in the right direction". But again and again, farmers stressed that more is needed.
82.0%