Young people today - and actually a large number of not so young ones across the nation - have no notion of where their food comes from. While it may very well be less true here in West Virginia than it is, say in Manhattan, nonetheless it still holds true. Unfortunately many people do not connect their food with agriculture and farmers.

West Virginia has 20,000 farms. Approximately half of them are small farms - those with fewer than 100 acres. In order to make a living on a farm this size requires that farm produce and products be sold at other than commodity prices. In other words, it requires that they be specialty crops or value-added products. New Appalachian Farm and Research Center (Farm Research Center) is building a knowledge base focused on providing farmers with information which will enable them to work in this new arena.

Across West Virginia, small farms are being sold for urban development at an alarming rate. In the 30 years from 1965 to 1995, West Virginia lost a tremendous number of farms - almost 18,000 - mostly to urban sprawl. And the loss in actual farmland is an astounding 1,820,000. This is true particularly in the Eastern Panhandle. With encroachment and urban sprawl spreading out from northern Virginia, there has been a significant loss of West Virginia's open space.

Complicating the situation further, young people today simply do not see the potential of their making a comfortable living on the farm. So in the same way that West Virginia sees some of its best and brightest graduates from our colleges and universities moving elsewhere in the country to ply their craft, our youth are also leaving farms to find places to work--irrespective of whether they might have an interest in agricultural work and feel an attachment to the land.

Related to this is the fact that in our high schools, those students who are academically talented and have an interest in going on to college shy away from junior and senior level courses in agriculture because they see them as fitting less neatly into a pre-college curriculum.

New Appalachian Farm and Research Center is also interested in finding ways to address this issue - the loss of talent to producing America's food supply. Across the country when a shortage of talent has arisen in certain area - whether it be nurses or teachers for urban center schools-- the most effective means of filling the gap is not simply to look at the immediate need, but rather to look at a longer term and more systemic approach by "growing their own" to fill the slots. The concept is to find very young people who might have an interest, or to help them find an interest by demonstrating how they can be a part. It is essentially a matter of grooming them to be able to do the work.

This is precisely what the Farm Research Center is interested in achieving--beginning with tours that allow elementary and middle school students to see the value, and the important connection between farms and agriculture and food. As a model site The Farm Research Center structures demonstrations that allow these youth to experience the fun, the joy and the curiosity of planting and watching the things grow.

Another area for research is the lack of information about what specialty crops are of interest to restaurants and would be bought from in-state producers--if they were available. By working with Professor Cheryl Brown, a West Virginia University Agricultural-economist, New Appalachian Farm and Research Center is surveying 100 restaurant owner/managers, 25 retail grocery stores (including regional purchasing centers), and 20 colleges to establish what preference they have for West Virginia products and what products in specific.

With this information, the Center can establish sound base line data about what in state farm products is currently being purchased and increase the number of chefs and establishments who are currently purchasing in state products.

West Virginia is divided into nine tourist regions. They are: Hatfield-McCoy Mountains, Mountain Lakes, Metro Valley, Mid-Ohio Valley, Northern Panhandle, New River Greenbrier Valley, Potomac Highlands, Eastern Panhandle, and Mountaineer Country. These regions are particularly well named because each describes the topography of the area which means that it defines the parameters in large part defines for what will grow there