County sees growth in small ranches and farms
Jul. 13—Texans are, in increasing numbers, retiring from the big cities into neighboring counties, with a desire to get into the agriculture business on a small scale.
Henderson County has been one of the destinations. AgriLife Extension Agent Spencer Perkins told Commissioners Court at a budget workshop, he sees many of them during the course of his job.
"We're having a large group of new people moving into the area, buying what we would call large tracts of land, dividing them into little ranchettes," Perkins said. "Everyone has their own opinions on that, I just know for me that's a lot of site visits."
Perkins said he recently met with a woman who had just bought property and advised her where would be the best places to put her house, garden and build a pen for a goat. He still meets with the large cattle ranchers about their problems, often heading for the Chandler area in the east or Tool to the west.
"We're getting busier and busier by the day," Perkins said. "Just site visits alone are hard. We haven't even factored in the small stuff."
He also fields many phone calls. Often the producer can snap a picture and text it to him so he can identify the problem without on on-site visit.
"Obviously, I have to use that and use that as often as I can to save the county money on travel," Perkins said. "When army worms hit, I'm liable to get fifty phone calls about why their hay pasture is disappearing."
The Texas Farm Bureau defines a small farm as a property of one hundred acres on which the owner/operator has been an active producer for five years or less. They often don't know where to seek managerial and technical assistance.
Many times they reach out to Perkins' office.
"Everybody is wanting to plant grape vines, peach trees, plum trees or a small garden, "Precinct 3 Commissioner Chuck McHam said, concerning the ranchettes and small farms.
A change in recent years has been the interest in farmer's markets. The small farmers produce items for sale locally, whether it's fruits, vegetables or jams and jellies. The Athens area was without one for many years, but now residents come to the City Parking Lot each week to see the wares.
In the early 1900s, the Texas legislature passed laws authorizing the county commissioners' court to provide and fund offices and conduct extension work in agriculture and home economics with Texas A&M. The local office is heavily involved in those areas and 4-H programs involving hundreds of students around the county.
