Voluntary agricultural districts were the topic of discussion during a meeting held Monday night at the Mt. Pleasant Community Center in Ellerbe.

The meeting was hosted by the Richmond County Cooperative Extension office in hopes of getting county residents interested in and on board with a voluntary program that would help preserve and protect local farms.

“It went well,” said Interim County Extension Director Paige Burns. “We had a surprisingly good turnout, about six or eight people, and we had a good discussion.”

Burns said the biggest concern was whether or not this program was completely voluntary.

“Any time there is a sort of government run program that has to do with property, people get a little concerned because people don’t want to be told what to do with their property,” Burns said. “But this is a completely voluntary program that gives people the ability to move out of the program if they don’t like it, or it isn’t working for them. I hope we made that point.”

An ad-hoc committee of county residents has been working on creating an ordinance for voluntary agricultural districts that would protect property owners while preserving the state’s agricultural heritage. It would give farm owners protection from things like nuisance lawsuits or potential condemnation by the state if the state wanted to route a bypass through the land.

The ordinance would allow for signs posted on the agricultural property to let neighbors know they were living in an agricultural district or “working farm area.”

An agricultural district would encompass a one-mile buffer area, between the agricultural district and non agricultural district.

Any person who moved into a marked agricultural district could not object to work being done in that area, such as the spreading hog manure, etc.

“Most people seem to have a favorable viewing of it,” Burns said of the ordinance. “They’re weighing the benefits in their own minds.”

Burns said she hopes that with the four remaining information sessions, she’ll be able to give people a clear idea of what the program is and isn’t and let them flesh out their concerns, so there’s no objection to it by the time it goes before the board of commissioners for a vote.

The ad-hoc committee had finished a first draft of the ordinance and sent it to be reviewed by Ted Feitshans, an Agriculture and Resource Economics, Extension Specialist and lecturer at N.C. State University, and that draft has been returned with a few changes that need to be made, Burns said.

The next information sessions are scheduled for Nov. 30 at the Mangum Community Center at 7 p.m., Dec. 7 at the Derby Community Building at 7 p.m., Dec. 14 at the Richmond County Agriculture Services Center in Rockingham at 7 p.m., and Dec. 21 at the Cordova Fire Department at 7 p.m.

For more information contact Burns at 997-8255.

n Staff writer Eren Tataragasi can be reached at (910)997-3111 ext. 19 or at etataragasi@yourdailyjournal.com.