A town that stymied winery growth now owes more than $49 million to wine operators

Location of Old Mission Peninsula
in Michigan (Wikipedia map)

Long known for its cherry orchards and scenic bay, Old Mission Peninsula, Michigan, is a winery destination with a contentious history between winery owners and residents. "On one side: wineries seeking alternative revenue streams," reports Jim Barrett of The Wall Street Journal. "On the other: farmers and homeowners who fear rowdy weddings and brides gone wild will shatter their agricultural enclave."

Years of feuding over development restrictions ended in winery operators suing the town, and this summer "a federal judge in Kalamazoo ordered the tiny locale (pop. 6,000) to pay the wineries $49.3 million in lost revenue over zoning ordinances the court found unconstitutional and in violation of Michigan law," Barrett writes. 

While town leaders appealed the massive judgment, Town Supervisor Maura Sanders asked officials to consider selling parts of the town to raise funds. Barrett explains, "She wants to appraise properties like public parks (including two with beaches), a historic 1870 lighthouse and vacant lots for potential sale. She has floated ending maintenance of the local cemetery and closing the township hall."

Joseph Infante, a lawyer for the 11 winery owners, "called the talk of selling off local jewels 'a P.R. stunt to paint the wineries in a bad light,'" Barrett reports. "One frustrated resident summed up his opinion of town leaders on a roadside sign: '$49 MIL. RESIGN.'"

Bowers Harbor Vineyards in located on the Peninsula,
but it does not offer private events. (Bowers Harbor photo)

The ire began with town requirements that curtailed winery development. Residents and town officials worked to prevent winery growth by designing "intricate rules, including tying guest counts to grape purchases and dictating which music genres could grace vineyards," Barrett explains. "Peninsula producers say myriad restrictions kept them from establishing the vibrant tourism they observed in other wine destinations."

Wine owners tired of rules and infighting filed suit in 2020. "As the lawsuit continued, the township repealed certain ordinances, and the wineries now hold more events without seeking government approval each time, though they remain cautious about larger activities," Barrett reports.

Some townspeople don't believe the winery owners will push to collect. "Some local leaders expressed confidence they would win on appeal — or that the wineries won’t actually force the town to pony up," Barrett writes. "The wine operators have said they could be flexible on the payout and are waiting for a sense of what the town’s insurers will pay before proceeding."

Quick hits: USDA lending system called outdated; rewriting the history of farming; who funds pink-slime publications?

The Department of Agriculture's outdated underwriting system hobbles rural lending, Maria Volkova reports for National Mortgage News.

America's lost crops rewrite the history of farming, Sarah Laskow writes for The Atlantic.

The Daily Beast names one billionaire who is funding "pink slime" journalism.

Montana wants to be the next wine country, from the Daily Yonder. 

The West is losing 1.3 million acres of sagebrush steppe per year, writes Sarah Trent for High Country News.

Invasive species that ruins grapes, hops, fruits, nuts and hardwoods is spreading from Pennsylvania

A spotted lanternfly. (Penn State photo by Michael Houtz)

The spotted lanternfly, a pest that munches on grapes, hops, fruit, nuts and some hardwoods, is spreading in the eastern U.S. Though the insect is native to China, it was first seen in Pennsylvania in 2014 and has been spreading since then, Bill Lucia reports for Route Fifty.

As of this year, the spotted lanternfly has been found in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and New Jersey. They don't bite, sting, or carry human diseases, but they do post a serious threat to farmers, especially those with vineyards, Lucia reports. Some Pennsylvania vineyards have reported up to a 90 percent crop loss.

"With this in mind, state and federal agencies have been waging a pricey war against the insect, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture allotting about $50 million—roughly $30 million of it in the past fiscal year—and Pennsylvania budgeting $3 million annually during the past two years for anti-lanternfly efforts," Lucia reports. "California’s agriculture department is also funding lanternfly research, including a project exploring the possibility of deploying small wasps as potential combatants. The spotted lanternfly has yet to establish a population in the major agricultural—and wine producing—state, but has turned up ominously on airplanes landing there."

Heather Leach, a spotted lanternfly expert at Pennsylvania State University's extension office, said the lanternfly will almost certainly keep spreading because of its lack of natural predators in the U.S. Predictive models show that it could most easily spread in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast, but that it would also probably thrive in the Midwest and West Coast, Lucia reports.

Researchers are trying to figure out safe ways to kill the pest with natural methods like fungi and wasps, but say there's probably not a silver bullet solution. Some enterprising Philadelphia residents have even tried to gamify killing the bugs with an app called Squishr where Philly residents can compete to see who can log the most kills. 

Chinese retaliate against Trump's tariffs on steel and aluminum with levies on pork, fruit, wine, ethanol, ginseng

DTN/The Progressive Farmer photo

After President Trump imposed tariffs on $60 billion in Chinese steel and aluminum exports last week, China immediately responded with tariffs on $3 billion in U.S. exports that could hurt rural Americans, Jerry Hagstrom reports for DTN/The Progressive Farmer.

China will impose tariffs on more than 100 products, including a 25 percent tariff on pork, and 15 percent on fresh fruit, dried fruit, nuts, wine, modified ethanol and American ginseng. "Missing were vulnerable prey like aircraft and soybeans, which experts say may come next if tensions continue to build," Natalie Kitroeff reports for The New York Times. "China is the United States’ third-largest export market, and a top destination for agricultural goods harvested in Trump strongholds."

National Pork Producers Council president Jim Heimerl of Johnstown, Ohio, told Hagstrom that "We sell a lot of pork to China, so higher tariffs on our exports going there will harm our producers and undermine the rural economy . . . No one wins in these tit-for-tat trade disputes, least of all the farmers and the consumers."

"Worries over a looming trade war have already hit Iowa pork producers' pocketbook to the tune of $240 million from falling prices, and the damage will likely grow," Donnelle Eller reports for the Des Moines Register.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer sent a letter to their Chinese counterparts last week suggesting that they were willing to negotiate on tariffs, if China agrees to cut the tariff on U.S. autos, buy more U.S. semiconductors, and give U.S. firms more access to the Chinese financial sector, Reuters reports. Word of that helped stock markets open higher today.

Prohibition gradually dying out in rural Kentucky

Kentucky is home to the Bourbon Trail of distilleries, but its Baptist plurality has long made it a state where most counties are "dry," and voting "wet" meant not just legal beer (as in Tennessee) but also whiskey, perhaps due to the liquor lobby's influence. The state has become much wetter over the last 25 years, and the trend appears to be accelerating, as two small, very rural counties and a county seat voted to approve alcohol sales last week.

"Since January 2014, voters have approved new or expanded alcohol sales in 23 cities or counties, and turned them down in only six cases, according to records from the Kentucky Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control," Bill Estep reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. "A number of factors account for that, observers said, including economic concerns, changes in state law, a greater acceptance of alcohol — even among members of churches that once strongly fought legal liquor — and hopes of keeping pace with nearby wet cities and counties." The latest rash of votes came in Southern Kentucky after the Pulaski County seat of Somerset, near Lake Cumberland, went wet. (Click on map for a larger image)

Lexington Herald-Leader map, updated with last week's Southern Kentucky votes

The broader trend began in 2000, when the state legislature allowed "votes on legalizing the sale of alcohol by the drink at larger restaurants, as well as golf courses and wineries," Estep notes. "Before that, voters had to decide whether to legalize all alcohol sales. That was a hard sell many places because of church opposition and concerns about major changes in rural communities and quiet small towns. The new law made alcohol sales more palatable."

The trend appears to be self-perpetuating. Carol Beth Martin, the state ABC's malt beverage administrator, told Estep, “As places nearby go wet, people are able to see that, if regulated appropriately, alcohol sales can be a benefit for a community as opposed to a nuisance. Alcohol sales oftentimes bring increased economic development to the community as well as provide an increase in tax revenue addressing quality of life issues in their community.”

Rural Walla Walla County, Washington, has reinvented itself as a wine and food mecca

Map from County Maps of Washington

Walla Walla County, Washington, has been reinvented as a wine and food mecca, Mike Seely reports for The New York Times. Walla Walla County, with more than 130 wineries and all manners of restaurants, "can aptly be described as Napa in bluejeans. Thirty years ago, only the denim part of that description would have applied. In the region, an agricultural powerhouse, it hadn’t yet dawned on farmers to grow grapes."

Mike Spring, a former fire chief who owns a brewpub in Dayton, Wash., told Seely, “Back in the ’80s, downtown was dying—truly falling apart. The wine industry has brought Walla Walla back to life.”

Several fine restaurants and "charmingly off-kilter wineries" have made Walla Walla "a destination for gastronomes and oenophiles alike," Seely writes. "But as a local brewer, Court Ruppenthal, puts it, 'People drink wine all day and say, ‘Now what I really need is a beer.’ For that, pulled-pork pizza, hush puppies and an unexpected dollop of top-notch French cuisine, the Touchet Valley towns of Waitsburg and Dayton beckon."

In Waitsburg, "a Rockwellian town of some 1,200 citizens at the eastern edge of Walla Walla County, a beloved Italian restaurant is across the street from a cafe whose hush puppies and upscale-Dixie aesthetic attract "loyalists from an hour in every direction," Seely writes. Local restaurant owner Ross Stevenson told Seely, “I guess we’re pretty lucky. ... These smaller towns are boom and bust. We’ve seen plenty of businesses come and go in Waitsburg since we’ve been here.”

About 10 miles down US 12 "is the Columbia County seat, Dayton (population, 2,500)," Seely writes. "With a main boulevard wide enough to host an Old West gunfight, the municipality’s economic heart stopped in 2005 when the Green Giant cannery moved to Peru. For decades, the company’s cartoonish Hulk-meets-Tarzan icon was carved into a hillside. It has faded considerably now, replaced by the cheese-yielding goatherd of Monteillet Fromagerie, which produces small-batch chèvre and brebis with a Francophile’s flair." (Read more)

USA Today lists best festivals in the U.S.; many promote tourism in rural areas

Now that the weather is heating up throughout most of the U.S., festival season is on the horizon. USA Today "teamed up with a panel of festival experts to find the best music, food, culture, art and film festivals in the U.S," Lydia Schrandt reports for USA Today. Readers were then allowed to vote for their favorites, and some of the winners include festivals in rural areas or with rural resonance.

Among the best music festivals, No. 2 was the Electric Forest Festival, a four-day music fest in Rothbury, Mich., a village with a population of 424. An estimated 50,000 people attend the festival every year. No. 7 on the list is Bonnaroo, a four-day festival held on a 700-acre farm in Manchester, Tenn. The festival had more than 90,000 attendees last year.

For poetry enthusiasts, the Best Cultural Festival list includes the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nev. The six-day event is "an annual celebration of the ranching and rural West," says the organization's website. Also on the list are the Texas Renaissance Festival, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Frozen Dead Guy Days, Cheyenne Frontier Days, Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and Festivals Acadiens et Créoles.

No. 2 on the list of Best General Food Festival is the Bounty of Yamhill County, located in the Willamette Valley in Oregon. The Bounty of Yamhill County "is a three-day annual event that celebrates this vibrant community of famous wineries, celebrated chefs and sustainable family farms. No other locally sourced food and wine event can boast such nationally recognized participants," says the organization's website. No. 9 on the list is the Beaver Creek Food & Wine Weekend, a four-day event in Beaver Creek, Colo.

For a complete list of best festivals, click here.

Map shows winemakers and commercial brewers

Nearly 10,000 winemakers and 4,500 commercial brewers work in the U.S., Christopher Ingraham reports for The Washington Post. While California, Oregon and Washington are known for an abundance of wineries and the Denver area has blossomed into the country's beer capital, winemakers and commercial brewers are spread out throughout the country, and many of them are located in unsuspecting places. This Post map shows the locations of all the known winemakers and commercial brewers. Click on it for a larger version.

Mitchell, S.D., and Walla Walla, Wash., recognized for using technology to revive their economies

The Intelligent Community Forum, a non-profit organization that describes itself as "a think tank that studies the economic and social development of the 21st Century community," has named its Smart 21 Communities for 2014, which recognizes communities "for their investment in broadband connectivity and their innovative use of Internet applications," Tim Marema reports for the Daily Yonder. Only four of the 21 are in the U.S., and two of those four are rural -- Mitchell, S. D. pop. 15,000, and Walla Walla, Wash., pop. 32,000. The list will be narrowed to seven in January, and in June the Intelligent Community of the Year will be named.

Mitchell Corn Palace (stillsstillmoving.com)

"Though Mitchell and Walla Walla may have smaller populations, the communities have big ideas about the role of broadband connectivity in raising the standard of living. And they’ve invested in infrastructure to help residents use digital tools to create jobs, improve education and reverse population loss," Marema writes. Both communities were seeing a sharp decrease in population, before making technological advances that encouraged people to stay.

Mitchell, which made the list last year, promotes "precision farming," using "GPS, Internet connectivity and other digital tools to control the cost of farming while increasing yields," Marema writes. "Mitchell has built a fiber-to-the-premises network that can serve every home and business in town, according to Prairie Business Magazine. Each seventh through 12th grader in Mitchell’s public schools receives a smart pad or laptop. The region has a two-year vocational school that teaches business, communications and precision farming. It also has a four-year college, Dakota Wesleyan University. The Prairie Business Magazine reports that a third of Dakota Wesleyan’s graduates stay in the area."

Whitman College students create prints for a Day
of the Dead celebration. Walla Walla's vibrant cultural
life was cited. (Walla Walla Union Bulletin photo)

Walla Walla "built a fiber-optic backbone for the area, improving the regions’ online connectivity. The network encourages new business development, and local leaders are currently working on ways to extend the network to more of the community," Marema writes. "Online tools are part of the region’s high-end wine industry, which now features 150 wineries and employs a few thousand workers, said Louis Zacharilla, also a co-founder of Intelligent Community Forum. A local-foods movement has enticed young chefs to move the area, he said, once again building on the region’s agricultural traditions in new ways." (Read more)

Climate change could turn much of Northwest into wine country, but that could threaten wildlife

A warmer climate could turn some rural areas in the northwestern U.S. into wine meccas by 2050, but converting those regions into wine country could have a negative impact on wildlife, according to a study published by the National Academy of Sciences.

"California’s wine-growing regions could lose more than 50 percent of their suitable territory, while the Canadian border country of Montana, Washington and Idaho could see a 200 percent boost in vineyard potential," Rob Chaney reports for The Missoulian in Missoula, Mont. Warmer temperatures could force wine growers to cooler areas with higher elevations. California currently accounts for about 90 percent of the nation's total wine production, NBC News reports.

The problem, the study finds, is that the prime places to grow grapes to produce wine are already inhabited by wildlife such as the gray wolf, pronghorn antelope and grizzly bears, Will Oremus reports for Slate. The most promising area is north of Yellowstone National Park, which is the "very type of wildlife corridor that scientists say may be needed to allow animals like grizzly bears to respond to climate change themselves," Oremus writes.

Lee Hannah, lead author of the study, said wine growers typically haven't had to look at the wildlife habitat impacts of vineyards, "but with climate change, that's going to become more prevalent. Planning that in conjunction with wildlife concerns takes collective action,” Brian Handwerk reports for National Geographic.

Drought likely to add delectability to Midwest wine

The ever-optimistic are out there. And they are growing grapes. Most of the grapes in Glenn Warnebold's vineyard in Missouri's picturesque wine country this year are about two-thirds of their usual size. Others have been reduced to raisins by the drought that burned up many crops across the Midwest this summer. Yet, writes Jim Suhr of the Associated Press, Warnebold figures it could be a good year with the drought concentrating the fruit's flavors and sugar, which will turn to alcohol during fermentation. His red Norton and white Chardonel grapes, while small, hold the promise of standout wine from a region better known for corn and soybeans. "The fruit will be better, overall, for reds and whites, then last year, when it was wet," said Tony Debevc, who has a 170-acre Ohio vineyard. "If it continues to be dry like this, the wine industry will be better overall. And personally, we can expand in the red category, and it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing."

But Suhr notes that not all is rosy. The drought has still stressed the vines, making them less likely to survive a harsh winter and produce next season. The harvest will almost certainly be smaller too. Warnebold figures he will get 2,500 cases of wine this year -- 1,500 less than what he typically might expect -- from his six-acre vineyard atop a bluff overlooking the Missouri River.

For those who understand this kind of talk: This year's wines from America's heartland "will be nice, fruity and very approachable and soft on the palate," predicted Diego Meraviglia, vice president and education director for the California-based North American Sommelier Association. But he believes the drought has cost some grape varieties complexities that may hinder the wines' abilities to age, meaning "you have to drink them within a year or they'll go bad." Warnebold, for the record, was none too impressed with that analysis. "I've been to a lot of wine conferences with a lot of wine experts, and I've never heard that theory before," he said. Brad Beam, an Illinois Grape Growers and Vintners Association enologist, downplayed the debate, saying "a lot of our wine is best drunk on the young side anyway." No matter. Seems it might be long debate, with a lot of talk about the drought conditions being more or less a common thing in these parts from here on in. That talk, of course, has the winemakers discussing whether to irrigate or not, and if so, how much, and, then, how much better their reds can get.
(Read more)

Pesticide drift damages Oregon vineyards

In Oregon, a rapidly growing number of vineyards that share boundaries with farms and private forestlands are being affected by pesticide drift, reports Susan Palmer of the Register-Guard. Herbicides have been used in Oregon for decades, and "often on rugged terrain that makes following product rules difficult," writes Palmer.

To compound the problem, grapes are notoriously sensitive to chemicals that kill broad-leaf weeds and pesticides for timberland are often administered by helicopter. Aerial drift is even harder to control in the windy, moist climate of Oregon. The pesticide industry acknowledges that drift is so challenging a problem that it can’t be eliminated, writes Palmer. Oregon vineyard owners Kevin and Karen Kohlman filed suit against neighboring company Roseburg Forest Products for the effects of the company's use of herbicides on its forest land. The Kohlmans say Roseburg's aerial spraying killed much of their vineyard. The Kohlmans and Roseburg settled out of court, after several years of legal wrangling.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed revisions to restrict herbicide use in order to limit drift, but pesticide companies are challenging the language in the revisions. The EPA has proposed additional label language warning applicators to avoid drift, but there is no schedule for making the change, agency officials said to Palmer. (Read more)

Southwest Va. county board rejects program to re-establish elk on mined land, as E. Ky. has done

The Board of Supervisors in Wise County, Virginia, has come out against a proposal by the state Department of Game and Inland Fisheries to place elk on reclaimed strip mines, but has endorsed the siting of electricity-generating wind turbines on the county's mountaintops, reports Jodi Deal of The Coalfield Progress in Norton (the county's independent city, which endorsed the elk idea).

The Virginia coalfield counties of Dickenson, Russell, Lee, Scott, Buchanan and Tazewell have been asked to take a herd from the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, "the same group that oversaw an elk restoration project in Eastern Kentucky," Deal writes, but Supervisor Steve Bates said the animals have already crossed into Kentucky's mother state and are causing trouble. “I have not heard one single positive comment,” Bates said. “I’ve had two or three people from Pound say, ‘They’re already in our town, come down here and hunt them if you want them’.” Pound Gap is the county's major pass to Kentucky, across Pine Mountain. (Encarta map)

"The county’s agricultural extension agent, the Wise and Dickenson County Farm Bureau and a local cattlemen’s organization all offered to gather experts to give county supervisors more information," Deal reports, but "Supervisors decided the flood of opposition they’ve heard to the proposal was enough information to make a decision. ... Supervisors echoed citizens’ concerns about property damage, disease, risk to motorists and lack of food for the huge animals."

Supervisor Ronnie Shortt "pointed out that the county has invested money in a new agricultural center on the Wise-Dickenson county line — a venture that’s proving to be a successful partnership between the two counties," Deal writes. "County Administrator Shannon Scott pointed out that elk could also trample fledgling trees on reclaimed surface mines, hampering reforestation efforts." Others worried about impact on vineyards. The Farm Bureau and the Coalfield Beef Cattle and Land Use Association oppose the idea. (Read more; subscription required) The wind-turbine story is here.

In another hunting-related story in the Progress, News Editor Jeff Lester reports that Powell Valley Primary School was placed on lockdown for 20 minutes yesterday because a teacher heard a gunshot from a squirrel hunter in nearby Jefferson National Forest. Police found two hunters and made sure they weren't shooting toward the school, Lester writes.

Economy seems to be helping agri-tourism, as vacationers stay closer to home

This is National Tourism Week, but the tourism industry is struggling in many areas as people scrap vacations in the face of financial uncertainty. Farmers are facing similar challenges, as both demand and prices for crops decline, but agricultural tourism has emerged as an unlikely success story in this tough economic climate, Chris Bickers reports for Southeast Farm Press.

“I think the main reason for the boom is the economy,” Blake Brown, an extension agricultural economist at North Carolina State University, told Bickers. People are finding that visiting farms provides a relatively cheap excursion close to home.

“I am seeing a big increase in local consumption of agritourism,” Ron Taylor, a farmer, vineyard owner and food processor in Dublin, N.C., told Bickers. “Usually, the consumer is taking this step in lieu of going on extended vacations that would cost more.” Taylor is one of the relatively few agri-tourism operators who offer overnight lodging, at cabins in his vineyard. (Farm Press photo)

Taylor admits that opening his place to the public wasn't easy. “That’s hard for us to do,” he told Bickers. “We have always been leary of people coming onto our farms, and a little reluctant. But now a different mindset is needed. We have to adapt if we want our operations to continue to be sustainable.” (Read more)

Mostly dry Kentucky county supports two wineries

Pulaski County, Kentucky, in Kentucky's Appalachian foothills, has been historically been a "dry" county, with no alcohol sold legally. But the county is now home to two wineries, granted special exemptions to sell their product through countywide votes in 2003 and 2007. A recent article in The Commonwealth Journal of Somerset highlights the steady growth the two have enjoyed since being allowed to sell their wine by the glass, bottle or case. They have benefited from winery tourism, which has brought in out-of-state and international visitors, but say local support still accounts for about half their trade.

“Really the first three years has been a little better than our business plan expected,” said Zane Burton, who owns Sinking Valley Winery with his wife, Amy. “However, we didn’t get the growth last year that we expected.” They and Jeff Wiles, owner of Cedar Creek Vineyard and Winery, say they're just happy to have a chance to farm. “Opening Cedar Creek Vineyards is the combination of two of my life-long dreams, owning my own business and making a living off the land,” Wiles told reporter Susan Wheeldon. (Read more)

Pulaski County has gone "moist" in another way, with legalization of alcohol at restaurants in Burnside, on Lake Cumberland. After the city voted, it annexed eight miles of the lake to take in another boat dock on the big creek west of still-dry Somerset, which lies between Burnside and its little satellite. (Encarta map)

'Sawdust shock' hits farmers, manufacturers, others

With fewer houses being built and fewer trees being cut, there's less sawdust to go around, and its price has hit $100 a ton in some markets, from a going rate of $25 a ton. That's bad news for farmers, particle-board manufacturers and even the makers of auto parts, but good news for some folks, reports The Wall Street Journal.

"Sawdust may seem like a lowly commodity, but it is widely used in today's economy," Joel Millman writes. "Farms use sawdust and wood shavings as cozy and clean bedding for horses and chickens. Particle-board makers devour it by the boxcar to fashion a cheap building material. Auto-parts manufacturers blend a finely pulverized sawdust called 'wood flour' with plastic polymers to make a lightweight material to cover steering wheels and dashboards. . . . Wineries use oak sawdust as a flavoring agent for some wines. . . . Oil-rig operators in Wyoming and Colorado pour sawdust into the caverns they find deep inside rock formations as they hunt for pools of petroleum. Sawdust gives drill bits something to grind through."

Some farmers are "using processed cow manure as bedding instead of wood shavings," Millman reports. "Many dairy farms have a process to convert cattle waste into methane gas that they sell to electric generators. The byproduct is basically the hay the cows ate. Lee Jensen's Five Star Dairy in Elk Mound, Wis., uses an aerobic digester to render manure into stall bedding, and has so much on hand after the process that he's selling the excess to neighbors."

Also affected are homeowners with special stoves that burn sawdust pellets. "The pellets, made of blended bits of cedar, lodgepole pine and Douglas fir, require dry fiber, without impurities. Tree bark won't do, only sawdust," Millman writes. Ernie Johnson, left, of Johnson Brothers Contracting in Missoula, Mont., "now mines old houses that are being torn down for lumber that he can grind up and sell." (Photo by Joel Millman)

One upside of "sawdust shock" is more money for scavengers. "Boy Scout troops in Oregon fattened their coffers in January collecting discarded Christmas trees," Millman reports. "Troop 618 in Beaverton made $3,000 hauling trees to a lumber recycler. Troop 728 made $10,000." (Read more; subscription may be required)

Kentucky farm joins others in replacing tobacco with wine grapes

With the future of tobacco in doubt, one farming family in Clark County, Kentucky, decided to look for another crop. They found it in grapes. Now called the Harkness Edwards Winery and Vineyards, the Edwards family farm has 13 acres of grapes and plans to have more eventually, reports Katheran Wasson of The Winchester Sun. (Kate Edwards, left, and her mother, Cathy Edwards, pick grapes at the vineyard in a Sun photo by James Mann.) The decision to switch from tobacco to grapes was difficult, Cathy Edwards told Wasson, but with the beginning of the state's tobacco buyout they needed a new cash crop. Cathy and Harkey Edwards also said they wanted to make sure their three daughters had something to inherit. So after getting advice from the University of Kentucky and the Kentucky Vineyard Society, the Edwardses settled on the vidal blanc grape, a French hybrid developed in the United States. This year will mark the second harvest, and Harkey Edwards said they would produce about 900 gallons of vidal blanc. Meanwhile, the family is finishing the winery's retail and tasting areas.

"I find a lot of gratitude in what we're doing," Cathy said. "I've enjoyed this whole venture; it's been a lot of work, certainly a lot of stress in just unknown issues, but we're working through it, and I think we're seeing some light at the end of the tunnel." (Read more) In a 2006 article for a publication of the University of Kentucky's College of Agriculture, Terri McLean traced the history of winemaking in the state, which before Prohibition "was the third-largest grape- and wine-producing state in the nation." She reports that long-time tobacco farmers are once again discovering grapes.