HD6 - Efforts of the Commonwealth's Agencies to Promote Nontraditional Beneficial Uses of Agricultural Lands and Rural Resources in Virginia
Executive Summary: House Joint Resolution 107 requires eight named state agencies to report annually to the Secretary of Economic Development on their efforts to encourage the nontraditional uses of agricultural lands and rural resources. The secretary, in turn, is to compile an annual report describing these efforts. This report is the first of the Secretary's annual reports. It is evident, after reviewing the detailed agencies' report, that many programs are now in existence to encourage the nontraditional uses of agricultural lands and rural resources. The report details a myriad of nontraditional uses encouraged by the named agencies - from raising llamas and late varieties of cabbage to fostering bed-and-breakfast inns throughout the Virginia countryside. It includes raising apples intensively on the site of an abandoned coal mine, and describes programs of the state land-grant universities developed with an awareness that farmers may raise fish profitably and that tourism is a major industry that can benefit rural Virginia. House Joint Resolution 107 requested the development and distribution of a Virginia Rural Development Assistance Guide and a Virginia Rural Recreational Opportunities Guide. Because of budget reductions in all state agencies and because no monies were appropriated for the two Guides, it was impossible to publish the two Guides this year. Next year's report will include not only the agencies' traditional report, but will be based, at least in part, on efforts resulting from the Governor's Rural Development Conference held in September 1990 and the final report which will be finalized in December 1990. |
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