Forecasters say Mother Nature is putting a chill on the outdoor growing season in West Virginia and several other states.
The National Weather Service has issued a frost advisory for most of West Virginia early Monday. The weather service says temperatures are expected to dip into the lower 30s in much of the state.
Homeowners are being advised to cover sensitive plants or bring them indoors to avoid being killed if left uncovered.
Freeze warnings have been posted for Michigan and parts of Wisconsin, while frost advisories also have been issued in parts of Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky and Ohio.
Members of the House of Delegates are looking for ways to help grow the state’s agriculture industry. A bill in the chamber’s Agriculture Committee would require the state to purchase more locally grown food.
House Bill 2566 creates the West Virginia Fresh Food Act. As introduced, the bill would require state funded institutions to purchase at least 20 percent of their produce from West Virginia farmers.
Members of the House’s Agriculture Committee amended the bill Tuesday to allow institutions to gradually increase their in-state purchases– starting at 5 and reaching 20 percent over a period of four years if it’s economically feasible.
Delegate Robert Thompson, a Democrat from Wayne County, is the bill’s lead sponsor.
“Not only are you cutting out transportation cost, you’re providing an economic stimulus for farmers in the state, and you’re also helping to reduce the possibility of contamination as well,” Thompson said.
The bill was passed out of committee and now goes to House Finance.
Those who’ve eaten a pawpaw before often say that the creamy, tropical fruit resembles a mix of a mango and a banana, or a mango and an avocado. They often can’t believe that the fruit is native to Appalachia.
“It’s creamy, but you get that tropical fruit taste,” said Katie Wight, a resident of Athens, Ohio, upon eating her first paw-paw. “It’s not really mango, but mango-papaya – that kind of genre.”
To the rest of the country, the pawpaw is little-known. It’s not commercially grown, in part because it’s so tricky to eat – it’s not ripe until it looks rotten on the outside, and ingesting the seeds or the skin causes some to fall ill. But the Appalachian fruit is showing potential.
Credit Anne Li/ WVPB
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Katie Wight holding first pawpaw at the Ohio Pawpaw Festival
In Charleston, a locally-owned ice cream shop called Ellens Homemade Ice Cream increased its supply of pawpaw ice cream this fall due to increased demand. And every year, thousands flock to Athens, Ohio, to celebrate the Pawpaw Festival, where they can learn about the pawpaw and buy pawpaw art, saplings and raw pawpaws.
“At my place, a Belgian gentleman comes and buys all my seeds,” said one attendee who traveled from his home in the Netherlands for the eighteenth annual Pawpaw Festival this year. He spoke of the growing market for pawpaws in Europe. “Before that I threw them away but he pays me 15 cents a piece. I ask him (why) and he says he (uses it) for curing cancer.”
Credit courtesy Katie Wight
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pawpaw teapot by artist, on display at the Ohio Pawpaw Festival
According to Andy Moore, a writer who recently published a book called Pawpaw: In Search of America’s Forgotten Fruit, pawpaws have been consumed in the United States for generations. Towns are named after the fruit, and folk songs, like “Way Down Yonder in the Pawpaw Patch,” have been written about them.
Writer Andy Moore in Phyllis, Kentucky at the Lucky Penny General Store. Credit courtesy Andy Moore
In the last few years, pawpaws have started to be cultivated on a very small scale. “People are growing them in orchards now, just like you would any other crop, which will hopefully give people more opportunity to taste it and experience it,” Moore said.
Credit courtesy Katie Wight
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A man dressed as a tree was available to take photos with children at the Ohio Pawpaw Festival
Some pawpaw fans hope that pawpaws can be included in the forest farming or agroforestry movement, which means growing and harvesting crops like ramps or pawpaws in the forest that many West Virginians landowners own. Walt Helmick, the West Virginia Commissioner of Agriculture, says that they haven’t looked into pawpaws as a commercial fruit yet, even though they are unique to the Appalachian region.
“We need to see what we can do with agriculture in the forest more than we have in years gone by,” Helmick said.
The USDA estimates that 6,000 West Virginia farmers suffered damage as a result of the flooding in late June. Farmers lost over $3 million worth of crops,…
The USDA estimates that 6,000 West Virginia farmers suffered damage as a result of the flooding in late June. Farmers lost over $3 million worth of crops, livestock, and fencing. But more than the monetary cost- there’s also an emotional toll that’s affecting some of these farmers. One couple in Greenbrier County says they almost gave up after losing two dozen of their rabbits, and all of their vegetable crops, in the high water.
Caroline Smith is smiling as she holds a tiny charcoal-colored bunny close to her chest.
This bunny was part of a litter that was born just 2 weeks after the flood. It’s mother was one of the few females to survive.
Another survivor rabbit is a plump silver bunny named Joplin who managed to swim, or float, fifty feet from her cage during the flood. Caroline and her husband Michael Buttrill raise these meat rabbits on their small farm, called Bootstraps Farm, located in an area of Greenbrier County that’s heavily logged.
Caroline and Michael admit that farming hasn’t been the most lucrative career path. They invested about $140,000 into the land and equipment. They’re able to scrape by and pay the bills partly because Caroline works two part time jobs off the farm. They’ve put all of their savings and most of their free time into this farm. Then in June, they lost it all to the flood.
“It’s been extremely difficult. These are the most challenging things we’ve ever been through, easily,” said Michael Buttrill.
Credit Roxy Todd/ WVPB
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Farmer Michael Buttrill says rebuilding after the June flood has been the toughest thing he and his wife have dealt with
Michael and Caroline were spending a rare weekend out of town at a family reunion when waters began to rise. Back at home, their neighbor drowned, and their farm was submerged in water.
Michael says their friends called and tried to prepare them for what lay ahead.
“I thought, ok, I’ll prepare myself, I’ll expect the worst and hope for the best as you try to do. I tried to think about the worst and it didn’t even come close. Our valley was the Mississippi river for about three hours, and our lives were in between the banks. “
Michael and Caroline lost thousands of dollars in tools and equipment. Their greenhouse- gone. The topsoil in their garden was washed down the valley.
Credit Roxy Todd/ WVPB
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There hasn’t been much down time in the last month and a half for Caroline and Michael. They’ve been too busy rebuilding fences, and trying to rebuild their farm after June flooding to stop and rest.
But worst of all, Michael says he almost lost his will to farm.
“I expect this to happen again in 50 years. And I kind of feel foolish now. You know, I feel like…why…am I living here? Why am I building this organic farm in a drainpipe? And I don’t want to feel that way.. but you got to face the facts.”
Rick Snuffer is the state executive director of the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) in West Virginia. He’s talked with farmers who, like Michael, have been beaten down by this flood.
His agency has requested $3 million from the federal government to help compensate farmers who lost livestock, crops, fencing in the floods. But that money has not been released yet. Snuffer says they hope to being granting compensation to farmers in about a month.
Out-of-state farmers have also pitched in to help. Many are offering hay and animal feed to support West Virginia farmers. The FSA is working to coordinate those donations to farmers whose animals need food this winter.
A month after the flood, a FSA employee visited Michael and Caroline on Bootstrap farm. The assistance worker helped Michael fill out a claim to help pay for some of their losses. Michael and Caroline also received a $500 check from Farm Aid.
Still, the biggest help came from a go fund me campaign that their friends started online. Michael says it’s giving them more than just money. “There was a time there right after the flood when I thought, I’m moving, I’m giving up. But I said, all these people believe in what we’re doing. I can’t give up. I’m gonna stay.”
So Bootstraps farm is starting to come back. Caroline and Michael have replanted their garden, and as long as they don’t get an early frost, they’re hoping to be able to sell vegetables throughout the autumn harvest. And they’ve learned from this flood. They’ve moved their rabbit hutches higher in the air, and they hope that next time, they’ll be able to protect their bunnies from flood waters.
Farmers who want more information about how to file claims for crop or livestock damages from the June floods can contact their local Farm Service Agency office, or call 304-284-4800.
Tracey Lea Frisch loves her pet chickens, which she keeps in her yard on the side of her house in the Hopecrest neighborhood in Morgantown.
“This is Pudding and Vanilla and Mr. Looster and Lucky and Star and Moonlight and that’s Roadrunner, and that’s Fluffy – the big one,” she said as she fed them grapes. “I have one broody; she’s pretending to have chicks. It’s not going to happen.”
But last fall, thirty of Frisch’s neighbors sued her, alleging that the chickens smelled bad, were noisy, ran wild and brought down property values. Locally, the chickens have become a sort of cultural phenomenon. They are now known as the “Hopecrest Chickens” – some dedicated community members have even created a Facebook page and a Youtube channel on their behalf. Fun aside, the issues brought up in the case represented a larger discussion about growing vegetables and fruits and raising livestock in cities, a practice known as urban agriculture.
More cities in the U.S. are experimenting with urban agriculture, by growing crops on roofs or indoors with the help of LED lighting. Rick Snuffer, the state executive director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency, said that the USDA’s push for urban agriculture isn’t only fueled by aesthetic and environmental concerns, but by a sustainable one too. As the country’s population grows, there’s less land on which to grow food to feed them.
Credit Jodie Rose
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Morgantown residents Jodie Rose and Jonah Katz dressed up as the Hopecrest Chickens for Halloween in 2015.
“There are six million dollars in food that has to be brought into West Virginia every year that could be grown here in West Virginia,” he said. “It’s imported from other states or countries. And, that’s one of the things the Commissioner of Agriculture is very concerned about – how can we create more of those crops at home?”
Yet urban agriculture is rare in West Virginia, and in Morgantown, a proposed urban agriculture ordinance combined with the Hopecrest Chicken lawsuit has sparked a prolonged debate between neighbors about who can garden what and where. The ordinance first entered the public’s eye in April 2015, and was modeled after an urban agriculture ordinance passed in Charleston.
“It was viewed as an opportunity to put land into productive use that was otherwise sitting vacant, and to encourage home gardeners and others to practice some of their own food production,” said Jim Kotcon, a professor of plant pathology at West Virginia University who also serves on the Morgantown Municipal Green Team. He helped draft the original version of the ordinance. “Given the long-running desire for fresh vegetables and fruits, and the ability to promote local foods, it was viewed as a positive opportunity and many viewed it as such at that time.”
Then, a couple of months before the Hopecrest Chickens lawsuit was served, city council discussed a more restrictive draft of the ordinance. It would put tighter limits on how much livestock residents could own, possibly require permits to build structures like doghouses or trellises and restrict how close those structures could be to the neighbor’s yard. Though some gardeners believe that this ordinance discourages urban agriculture, others appreciate some restrictions.
“They haven’t mowed. They have not weeded at all,” said Kevin Downey, a longtime Morgantown resident, of his neighbor’s front yard. “You can see the watermelons has grown through there so you can’t get a lawn mower in there. The trellis – you can see it’s made out of pipes, metals, plastics, pieces of wood, pieces of anything. I don’t know, personally I don’t think it belongs in the front yard.”
Credit Anne Li / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Axel Anderson, 10, picks raspberries from his mother’s garden in Morgantown.
Kotcon says the issue of who gets to garden what isn’t a petty one at all. On a global scale, being able to self-sustain is important to a country’s national security. On the backyard scale, he thinks gardening is a radical act, and being able to grow one’s own food especially resonates with young people.
“It is the fundamental right of each person to wrest a living from the land, free of any corporate control, working with nature to create their food and perhaps a surplus for sale and profit,” he said. “That is something inherently American.”
It’s unclear when Morgantown’s proposed ordinance will return to the city council agenda. But until then, some residents will continue doing what they love best – growing and eating the food they grow in their own backyards.
West Virginia University at Parkersburg is joining a statewide effort to bring more veterans into farming or a related agribusiness.
The West Virginia Department of Agriculture says Parkersburg is the first college to participate in the Veterans and Warriors to Agriculture project.
Started in 2009, the program is aimed at helping veterans feed themselves and their neighbors. Since then, the program has grown to more than 100 West Virginia veterans who are now farmers or involved in agribusiness.
Veterans and Warriors is already partnering with beekeepers and educational farms.
The idea behind the program is to ease the emotional stress of veterans through farming.
WVU Parkersburg has an agricultural program leading to a one-year certificate or two-year associate degree.
