Three named CARE farms for 2017

SAINT JOHNS COUNTY – Three farms in the tri-county area of Flagler, Putnam and St. Johns counties were named CARE farms Nov. 9, when the Putnam-St. Johns County Farm Bureau hosted a Farm Week Celebration.

“It’s time to educate, Bryan Jones, Farm Bureau president, told an audience of some 100 gathered at the St. Johns County Agriculture Center for lunch, as part of a day-long tour of area farms. “We are a dying breed and losing farmers every day.” The Nov. 9 event provided an “opportunity to educate.”

Jones described himself as a third generation potato farmer – “farm raised and farm proud.”

Politicians and their representatives mingled with farmers, as Forest Grove Ferneries and J.R. Newbold, Putnam County; Tommy Bratcher and Bratcher Farms, Flagler County; and Prim Parker, St. Johns County, accepted “This Farm CARES” signs to display, signifying that the owners have voluntarily implemented Best Management Practices on their properties. CARE stands for The County Alliance for Responsible Environmental Stewardship.

The three were recognized as some of the “one percenters,” the one percent of the population which feeds America. “It’s time to educate,” Jones stressed, and to change the attitude, he announced that the education will begin in the classroom. Children have no clue where food comes from. The public is out of touch. The “uneducated public doesn’t know what we do to feed them.”

Jones noted that in St. Johns County, along, the farming industry has a $180 million impact.