Bill Powel

Bill Powel recently finished a “gradual downsizing” of his career with the Carroll County, Md. farmland preservation program. Bill was a pioneer in farmland protection and was among the first in the county to preserve his farm. FPR spoke with Bill on Nov. 9, 2009 about his farm, about Carroll County’s master plan rewrite, and the future for farming in Carroll.

FPR: Bill, I last interviewed you in April 2005 and at that time you were turning over your farm to a Matt Hoff for leasing. Is that still going on?

POWEL: Yes, in addition now to Matt Hoff using our farm for crop production to support not only his large dairy herd, but, and I think this is of interest, in order to afford this large, efficient and hugely expensive machinery the farmers who go that route need to cover a lot of acreage to justify owning it, and what Matt Hoff did was acquire the dairy farm that our children had owned and operated in addition to my own farm and Matt has sold that to another dairyman who is milking 400 cows – I don’t know how many Matt has – but he raises and harvests all the other feed for the other 400-cow operation as well as for his own herd… He rents a good deal of cropland also. He’s got a big combine sitting out front right now, getting ready to do soybeans today.

FPR: Yes, a lot of farmers are doing soybeans today.

POWEL: In addition to that, our youngest daughter Nancy, who is a veterinarian, she and her husband raise purebred Holstein heifers, and at any given time they will have up to 30… So our pasture is being utilized, which it wasn’t in 2005.

FPR: Oh, OK. So farming is still going on at the Powel farm, then… I’m glad to hear that. Well, Bill, I know you’ve retired, but I don’t know what the effective date was.

POWEL: Well I feel very fortunate that the county allowed me to downsize gradually. I enjoyed providing support for Ralph after he became the program manager. But the program here as you know is extensive and we really weren’t getting the job done with me working part-time so that’s when the county decided to fill the second position. We are very fortunate to have Jeff Everett and Ralph running the program. With that, I went down to working two days a week instead of three. And that was good, but I still had trouble keeping up with the maintenance of my own farm and wanting to enjoy more travel and family life. September 16th was my last workday.

FPR: Have you adjusted? What was it like to walk out and never come back?

POWEL: Well, it’s here… [laughter]

FPR: So you haven’t really walked out…

POWEL: With the hiring freeze, the desk is still there, there’s a few complicated easement amendment projects that I was working on because I had the historical knowledge so I’ve been in a couple days as a volunteer. In fact I didn’t want to just drop in, so I left voicemail that, if it was alright, I’d be in later. And Ralph Robertson called Becky and said ‘we were placing bets all over the building how long you’d put up with Bill before you sent him back in here.’ And he said, no, not really, and to come on in. I was already on my way in… He and Jeff are busy purchasing the new leveraged IPAs.

FPR: Yes. Yours is one of the few programs with a lot of money to spend.

POWEL: Yes, we are very fortunate that the commissioners made that commitment at this time, feeling that it was a smart move to get easements when we had a large number of people interested in doing this.

FPR: Yes, that is fortunate, and you may get much closer to that 100,000-acre goal.

POWEL: Yes.

FPR: I remember talking to you about that in ‘05 and how you felt that zoning would have to play a big role in reaching such a protection goal. Now I assume you have kept up with the proposed master plan and as I understand it, some key features have been rejected, or the whole thing has been rejected…

POWEL: Right now the Planning Commission voted to send it back to staff for revisions, so I guess technically you could say it’s been rejected, but there is no doubt parts of it will end up getting passed. And one of the things that most likely will pass, I believe, is a provision in our zoning ordinance. As you know we have roughly one residential lot per 20 acres, but when it plays out with multi-parcel deeds and other features it’s effectively about 1:15, which is not the most strict in Maryland, but is certainly among the better ag zones. When you look at how they actually occur, I think we do better than the Maryland Office of Planning normally ranks us. But there was a provision to grant one additional lot right for a developer who was going to create the lots so the remainder would have an easement on it rather than just being restricted by the zoning ordinance. And that’s where I think the zoning would come in in helping us make the 100,000-acre goal because they were going to make that retroactive. In other words, if a 100-acre farm had created its two off-conveyances and five residential lots, they could now come back and get one additional lot if they put a perpetual easement on the remainder.

FPR: So you think, on the ground, that will be good for farmland protection?

POWEL: The extra lot won’t be any more objectionable than the one unrestricted lot a MALPF easement now allows. And we would then have the permanent easement and would be able to count those acres, which, for all practical purposes are already preserved but not in perpetuity with an easement. And to get that easement, would be worth it, and I agree with that decision.

FPR: OK. What other provisions in the plan were important to farm areas?

POWEL: One of the major factors was the fact that our rural areas have both agriculture and conservation zoning and when both zones were first made effective the ag zone allowed development in one-acre lots on the entire property, so it was not really an agriculture zone – there was no restriction on development- so in 1978 when that downzoning went to one lot per 20 acres, the conservation zone, which allowed 3-acre lots or clustering at the rate of 1:3, remained unchanged. Over time the conservation zone became more of a development zone, which it was not intended to be. And the Pathways plan [update] proposed to change that zoning essentially to the same as the agriculture zone. That was a significant change that was opposed by a good many landowners. And also traditionally we have a lot of multi-parcel deeds in the county which is the provision that allows more than the 1:20 by having pre-existing parcels and there was some effort to close the loophole there, which a number of people testified against. But basically, the most controversial part of the Pathways plan was the proposal to have a couple areas of new industrial zoning that is currently agriculturally zoned – people in those areas were the most vocal. I think that was like a lightning rod, the principal item that brought the plan to the point where it is now, rejected and sent back to staff. But the planning commission had quite a few workshops and I think those have given staff a good deal of direction and I think they will come forth with a plan that will be beneficial in the end. The Pathways plan proposed the Priority Preservation Area that is mandated, but it also proposed a Priority Preservation Area for environmental protection, which was principally the watershed of the Liberty Reservoir where the most downzoning would have occurred – we’ll just have to see how that one plays out. I don’t have any reservation that we’re going to have a good Priority Preservation Area when the plan is finally approved.

FPR: OK, so you’re optimistic. Are you optimistic generally about the future of agriculture in Carroll County?

POWEL: Cautiously optimistic. We’re going to go through a transition, and its a shame we have transitioned out of so many family farm operations, but both livestock and grain producers who wish to stay in business need to rent so much land that I am optimistic we have a good many young farmers like Matt Hoff that want to continue farming …

FPR: So you’re optimistic about what we would call traditional agriculture…

POWEL: And we are seeing a conversion of farms into new enterprises such as nursery and vegetable production and direct marketing.

FPR: Well, Bill I’ve kept you a good while, I know you need to get back to your project there this morning. Thanks for your time.

POWEL: Thank you, Deborah.