Family’s Property May Become Community Farm

By Sylvia Lim, The Bradenton Herald, Fla.

Jun. 14–PALMA SOLA — Carroll Geraldson’s seven children worked together on their family’s farm to put themselves through college.

They planted tomatoes, eggplants, beans, okra and other vegetables on a 20-acre plot of land less than a mile from the mouth of the Manatee River to pay for part of their tuition.

Now, they hope that other residents get to till the earth and grow their own food on their former property, which the county bought for $2 million last year with plans to start a community farm.

Plans to turn the Geraldson Farms into a community grow-and-eat venture started when members of the Geraldson family did not want to see their land turned into another subdivision.

“The key management objective in this is to carry on Geraldson Farms as a working community farm,” said Charlie Hunsicker, the director of the Manatee County Conservation Lands Management Department. “We also want to preserve green space in productive agriculture.”

In an hour-long presentation Tuesday at the Palma Sola Botanical Park, which is next to the farm, Hunsicker and members of a nonprofit organization introduced the concept of community farming to a handful of Bradenton residents.

Britton Miller, project manager with the Florida West Coast Resource Conservation and Development, talked about turning the Geraldson’s Community Farm, a nonprofit entity, into an economically sustainable operation.

Drawing from five other similar projects from around the country, including one in Tampa and another in Punta Gorda, Miller presented ideas on how Geraldson’s Community Farm could operate and thrive.

The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University reported that there were more than 1,000 such community farms across the country in a 2005 study.

Under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Community Supported Agriculture model, the farm could have a base of subscribers who would pay in advance for the farm’s operation and share the produce during growing season.

The farm could also sell goods to local farmer’s markets and restaurants, as well as serve as a venue for community events and education programs, Miller said.

Initial drawings for the farm show a community garden patch and a barn that would serve as a visitors center.

The county has pledged to help the operation by setting aside a $500,000 budget, Hunsicker said.

The idea is to wean the farm from county financial support one day, said Laura Morton, coordinator of the Florida West Coast Resource Conservation and Development.

For the Geraldson children, turning their former land into a community-based venture means a lot.

It is a legacy for the Geraldson patriarch, the 88-year-old Carroll Geraldson, a former University of Florida professor who shares the patent of the earth box with another prominent local farmer, said his daughter Reba.

“My father had been instrumental in this county as scientist and researcher and farmer,” she said. “We’re hoping that, in Dad’s lifetime, we’ll get to see all this.” The next community meeting on the Geraldson’s Community Farm is June 26 at 6 p.m. at the Palma Sola Botanical Park.

County assists in farm venture

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Bradenton Herald, Fla.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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