Onslow County Incubator Farm
April 2016 — NC Growing Together is strengthening farm-to-base and base-to-farm connections with new project partner Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, NC. NCGT matched funds with Onslow County Cooperative Extension and Onslow County Farmers Market Association to hire a full time Farmers Market and Incubator Farm Manager for 2016-2017. The new position will provide leadership at the incubator farm and strengthen efforts both to supply the Marine Corps base with farm-grown produce, as well as recruit base personnel, spouses, and retirees to participate in the farm.
“When we looked around at Onslow County, with the average age of farmers being 59, and the amount of farmland that the County has lost in the last 20 years — we thought, what are we going to do?” asks Tim McCurry, Community Plans and Liaison Officer for Camp Lejeune. “You have to have some way to address new farmers. You have to find those people who have the passion, who are young enough and can work a hard day,” he says.
It turns out the base is the perfect place to find new farmers. Military personnel who have retired after 20-30 years of service but who still want to work, military spouses who are looking for ways to grow healthy food for their children or supplemental income, and former combat veterans who find therapeutic benefit in farming — all have found ways to channel their energy and talents in the incubator farm and farmers market.
“Of 17 farmers market vendors, 5 are military spouses” selling produce and crafts, says McCurry. “In addition to providing healthy food, the market is providing employment opportunities on base.” One college-educated military spouse balked at the idea of taking a service job and runs a vendors’ booth selling homemade crafts. Another former military spouse began farming as a way to feed her family healthy food, which led to raising sheep, growing her farm from 2 to 30 acres.
McCurry knows of several combat veterans from the Wounded Warriors battalion who find farming or, in one case, woodworking — creating handcrafted products he sells at the farmers market — so therapeutic that they have gone off medication they previously required. “That aspect
[of this work] will keep me and this community in this for the long run,” McCurry says.
Camp Lejuene will also be hosting a Summer 2016 NCGT Apprentice. Taylor Halso, a student at the University of Mount Olive, will support both farmers market and incubator farm projects and work under the mentorship of McCurry at Camp Lejeune and Peggy Garner, Onslow County Cooperative Extension Director.
This article originally appeared in the April 2016 NC Growing Together Newsletter.