BACK BAY — Jane Bloodworth Rowe and I recently worked together on a story about the end — if only for now — of the local Buy Fresh Buy Local chapter in Hampton Roads. For years, it guided consumers to businesses such as farms and restaurants with a commitment to local food.
You can read that story for yourself. It essentially started with an inquiry — just checking up on where they were during the ongoing pandemic, which continues to create challenges for a wide range of organizations. The Hampton Roads chapter is still listed at the national site, but the link leads you to a page filled with generic blog posts. It reads like an especially vague ghost.
That’s a shame because the people behind the local nonprofit, and the folks who remain committed to local food sources and culture in our city, are anything but nondescript. Local food is a passion as well as a vocation. Efforts like Buy Fresh Buy Local are more than marketing. They can be an organizing force for people who care about supporting good food and, as is a core mission of this newspaper, our local agriculture businesses. We need to do the work for consumers sometimes because people are busy. Reaching out makes a difference. The things we care about need a voice.
As consumers, we can continue to support local growers and policies that protect the industry, which, in our community, overwhelmingly is comprised of family farms. We can support local farm markets, including our friends at the Old Beach Farmers Market in the Vibe Creative District at the Oceanfront and the city-run Virginia Beach Farmers Market near Landstown.
We can also support land-use policy that is proactive in its protection of land, the most valuable resource necessary for the actual hard work behind production of crops or to graze and raise livestock. That means more than just protecting the agricultural reserve program, commonly called the ARP, which is the main economic development program for farming in Virginia Beach.
It means care in land-use guidance, such as the comprehensive plan update, which will require citizen involvement and a close eye on whether policy makers stick to their aims after the plan is done. Frankly, some political leaders, who have been inconsistent in land-use decisions in the rural area of late, might want to give a close read to the chapter on rural land use.
You can also read a column on Page 12 by Farmer John Wilson that is based upon a conversation with his friend, Kevin Jamison of Commune. The restaurant has a mission to use as much as possible that is locally grown and produced. It isn’t lip service. It is an example to build upon.
During a recent visit to Richmond, I spoke with state Del. Jackie Glass, D-89th District, who recently took office. We spoke because of her bill to ban the use by law enforcement of fake documents to elicit confessions in interviews [HB1281]. This practice came to light earlier this month in Virginia Beach after former Attorney General Mark Herring announced an agreement with the city that came after an investigation of the tactic, which the department already had ended nearly two years ago after its use in a few cases.
Our story about this appeared in the Sunday, Jan. 16, print edition and is now online at princessanneindy.com. During a brisk walk at the Capitol – I am not as young as I used to be – Glass told me she turned to a resource in considering some of the bills she submitted in the House this session.
It was the work of journalists. They filled in details by obtaining the records behind the story. That includes TV affiliates and Jane Harper of The Virginian-Pilot.
HB1281 follows the AG report and media reporting about what the bill calls the use of “inauthentic replica documents” such as a fake DNA report that ended up in a court file in Virginia Beach, factoring into at least one bond discussion while an accused person was in jail.
And a bill about how housing authorities can use funds and tax credits [HB1216] was informed by the excellent original investigative reporting by my friend Jim Morrison, writing for The Virginia Mercury.
“You guys are needed,” Glass said, speaking of journalists.
Morrison investigated a for-profit subsidiary of the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority that, as one of his stories notes, “has invested the bulk of its federal tax subsidies in far-flung projects in 15 states and the District of Columbia, but not in Norfolk.”
It is compelling, concerning stuff, and I urge you to seek it out online via virginiamercury.com. Worth a read.
Notably, at least to me, is that Morrison wrote the story not for The Pilot but for The Mercury, a nonprofit news organization. This suggests the extent to which The Pilot has been diminished: following another outlet on a major story on its own turf. Morrison, an award-winning independent journalist, developed the story himself.
It also underscores the need for watchdog journalism, whether it is by independent reporters or emerging outlets.
We need local news, perhaps especially when it tells us what we don’t want to hear. The Pilot was once the dominant newsroom in our communities.
We need more options.
I have been overwhelmed by the interest in Farmer John’s column from the Sunday, Jan. 16, print edition, which is now online at our site, and your support for his recovery from a stroke late last year.
Wilson is still improving, of course, but he has resumed working on columns when he can. All of us involved in The Independent News appreciate your thoughts.
Thanks for reading.
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