Sussex County is being covered with farm-style homes being built and sold where once-fertile farm fields were tilled.
Remodeled homes boast “farmhouse kitchen sinks.”
The definition of a farm is an area of land and its buildings used for growing crops and rearing animals. It now appears we are leaning toward industrial agriculture, or is it commercialized agriculture?
I am thankful we still have tillable farmland. I am fearful it will soon be lost to more high-density, high-volume developers here in Sussex County and creeping into Kent County.
I realize too that we desperately need affordable places for those hardworking individuals who try to earn an honest living, but who can’t afford $1,800/month or more rent.
I believe we need to retain the old-time family farms if the family still has the desire. How to create the incentive for the farmers to keep on will be the challenge. Pride in doing farm work does not pay the bills. I know I would not have the tenacity to work day in and day out in various weather conditions. The biggest gamblers we have in Delaware aren’t at Dover Downs or the Harrington slots, but those who till the fields and raise the meat for our table.
I don’t have an answer for this dilemma, but hope that some of our elected officials can find a solution and implement it before our valued lifestyle is forever lost.
There used to be a saying: I’ll sell it to ya for dirt cheap. Our lands aren’t cheap, but are very valuable, and hopefully a way can be found to retain them for continued farming, not growing more houses for the elite.
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