If you would like to volunteer or visit Lomax Farm, check out their website. We have volunteer workdays most months at which people can come and lend a hand. WA: Specifically, how can people help Lomax Farm?ĪN: Lomax can use financial donations that go to help pay for the cost of educating the next generation of farmers. I don’t think there is much people can do globally but focusing on making a local community a better place is great work to do and likely there will be great people who want to do the same in any particular community, so it will be fun.
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Before it goes in your mouth you should consider where it came from. WA: What advice can you give to people with regard to how we help our local farmers? How about globally?ĪN: Buying from local farmers is the best way to help. Joe now farms 18 acres and owns GO Local NC Farms, an online local foods market and delivery service in North Carolina.)ĪN: I am teaching my daughters to seek out good food, good music, good books and good people and to think for themselves. WA Note: Joe Rowland runs Rowland’s Row Family Farm, which was part of the beginning farm program at Lomax Farm with one row. WA: That is a lot on your plate (pardon the pun)! How do you spend your “down time”…if you have any?ĪN: I ride a bike and do yoga. Also my wife and I run a local foods grocery store. I am currently working for the YMCA on the development of a farm I designed for them that will turn volunteer labor into the fresh vegetables needed to address hunger relief. Most recently I worked on a team that designed a pocket park that also serves as a farmers market.
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Also, I have some fiction I would like to write.ĪN: In addition to my time working in land development and coauthoring a book I have been a teacher, worked in the restaurant industry, the nursery industry and done lots of independent design projects including the design of a fireplace mantle, among other items. WA: If you weren’t working as Farm Coordinator, what would you be doing?ĪN: Bicycling. WA: Who inspires you to do the work that you do?ĪN: My main mantra is quite simple: A sustainable and healthy local food system in my community before my daughters have their own children. What could be more important than eating? Food is who we are – literally - so it makes sense to me to pay attention to the overlapping systems that make food available within my community. My categories might seem odd but there are actually lots of designers working on just this combination. WA: How did you chose to become involved in soil, plants, and community outreach? It’s quite a combination…an important combination!ĪN: Architects are systems thinkers trained to combine sometimes seemingly disparate categories of information. I enjoy being around the people who share this vision.
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so I was obligated to help this vision become a reality. All kidding aside, I once coauthored a book, A Nation of Farmers, which called for 100 million new farmers in the U.S. I spent a decade turning farm fields into subdivisions so really this is just atonement. WA: What adventures in your life have led you to where you are and who you are?ĪN: I am trained as a Landscape Architect. I serve as the Lomax Farm Coordinator with CFSA. During our first 6 growing seasons we have added a community garden, a charity plot, a hops trial, a beekeeping project, classes, workshops and more. We are a USDA Certified Organic farm operated by Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (CFSA) with partnerships including: Cabarrus County Government, Rowan Cabarrus Community College, University of North Carolina Charlotte, Cooperative Extension, CABREW, Central United Methodist Church, and others. Lomax Incubator Farm was started in 2009 with the mission of training the next generation of farmers in Cabarrus County, NC. WildesArt: Tell us about Lomax Farm and your role there.Īaron Newton: The Elma C.