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Preserving
Wilderness and Farm Land
Smith County's First Agricultural District
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Butterfly Hollow Farm ____ The Path Leading Us Here ____ How The Farm Got Its Name ____ Restoring the Old Farmhouse ____ Where The Beefalo Roam ____ Saddle Up The Horses ____ Saving Wilderness and Farm Land ____ Farm Journals ____ Sharing The Farm ____ Guest Book ____ Site Map ____ |
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The farmers
and landowners of the Hogan's Creek and Dyer's Branch farming communties
have joined together to create Smith County's first official Agricultural
District. These districts are a result of the Farmland
Preservation Act of 1995 which created this process for the preservation
and recongnition of lands dedicated to agriculture production in Tennessee.
The primary purpose for this union of neighbors, family and friends
is to promote community pride and to create a common voice that speaks
to those who travel through their farming community. This
community wants to maintain the quality of life that they enjoy by
protecting the natural values and landscape, by preserving the large
acreage tracts of land, and encouraging environmentally safe farming
practices. The agriculture district will initially cover 1666
acres of land which is comprised of rolling hills, bottom land, mixed
hardwood forests, hillside pastures, Hogan's Creek, Dyer's Branch,
and many small springs and tributaries. Currently there is a wide variety of land use among owners and farmers. The largest production in terms of land use is the raising of Beefalo livestock. In addition there are over 29,000 pounds of tobacco allocated to the area, 123 acres of Hay cultivated, a wide variety of forest management production, truck farms raising pumpkins, grapes, and miscellaneous vegetables, and you can also find hillsides scattered with horses and goats. There are three full time farming operations, Bussell's Beefalo & Paint Horses, Hogans Creek Beefalo, and Ronnie Bussell Farms. The rest of the 14 landowners that make up the district either lease their land or have a partnership with one of these farms, or have smaller part-time farming operations. As well as agricultural uses there a many acres used for recreation and enjoyment. On almost any day you can find families out working in their garden, hiking through the hills, fishing in the creeks, riding horses through the ridgetop trails, or out hunting in the woods. If you look close enough you might also see the quiet places that each resident secretly enjoys like the hammock nestled among the trees, the log bench facing a sunset view, or a back porch swing looking out over the garden. It's all these ingredients that make up their country community and create the backbone to the quality of life that they all enjoy and want to preserve. As Smith county's first agriculture district they hope to be an example to the other landowners that make up the decreasing 150000 acres of Smith County farms and open land. The American Farmland Trust declared that Smith County and 11 of its surrounding counties are the 12th most threatened agricultural land in the entire United States. Considering this alarming fact and the astonishing rate that farmland is being subdivided, and the rate population is increasing it is going to take the landowners, communities and local governments working together to stop the momentum. One of the first steps necessary for an organized communication effort is for concerned landowners and citizens to join together. This can be done in a variety of ways from organizing a county land preservation club, writing a community vision statement and having all all your neighbors sign it, getting already existing local clubs and organizations to adopt county wide land preservation as an important issue, as well as the example that the Hogans Creek/Dyers Branch farming community did by forming an Agricultural District. Once the voice for land and farm preservation becomes organized and has with it the power of numbers (voters, acres, economic contribution) changes can happen.
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info@butterflyhollow.com
Butterfly
Hollow
Gordonsville,
TN 38563