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Any given farmers market parking lot contains a familiar spattering of bumper stickers: “Buy Local.” “Support Your Local Farmer.” And for Mike Smith of Big Oak Farm in Cabarrus County, none of them are the answer.

“Demand has outpaced supply for at least 10 years now, ever since we started doing farmers markets,” he says. Smith, whose family has been farming on the same land for over 150 years, has the market to sustainably expand his operation, with locavores and farm-to-table restaurants clamoring for his pastured beef and pork.

But rapid development and resulting rising land prices stand in his way– and threaten the area’s local food supply.  

“Once you start putting down concrete,” he says, “it’s never going to go back to farmland again.”

Zack Wyatt, a Northern Virginia farm kid turned Charlotte transplant, began noticing the Carolinas’ disappearing farmland after reading local blogger

“Tucked into the heart of the Carolinas at VanHoy Farms in Harmony, NC is this year’s Carolina Jubilee festival, September 29 and 30. The third annual festival is the project of the Carolina Farm Trust, an organization whose mission is to improve the environmental sustainability of farming communities of the Carolinas. There will be 18 bands over the two days, along with food, drinks, and various other activities all from right in the region.

To truly understand the Carolina Jubilee, it is important to consider the initiatives of the Carolina Farm Trust which began just over two years ago in May of 2015. “I just started talking to the farmers and asking ‘What do you need? Is it a tractor; is it land?’ and then I began making all of these commitments that I had no idea how I would follow through on. So I needed a vehicle for that

The Carolina Farm Trust helps farmers acquire equipment, lease or purchase land, protect farmland from development, and through creative marketing campaigns.

As the state’s leading dairy producer, Iredell County is an ideal location for the Trust’s signature fundraiser, the Carolina Jubilee.

The Jubilee will feature live local music, farm-fresh cuisine, local breweries and more. The event is set for Sept. 29-30 at VanHoy Farms in nearby Harmony.

Zack Wyatt, Carolina Farm Trust and Jubilee founder, said that the organization was looking for an agricultural center that could bridge the divide between rural and urban life.

“There is (no place) better than North Iredell County,” he said. “(The Jubilee) brings the region together to celebrate Carolina agriculture and put a spotlight on Carolina businesses that utilize Carolina farms as part of their supply chains.”

Wyatt is thankful for the consistency and support of the Jubilee’s numerous vendors, including small business and agriculture-based vendors, vineyards, and

“The first supermarket supposedly appeared on the American landscape in 1946…Until then, were was all the food?  Dear folks, the food was in homes, gardens, local fields, and forests. It was near kitchens, near tables, near bedsides. It was in the pantry, the cellar, the backyard.” -Joel Salatin.

Every year, we loose an alarming amount of land to the continuous development of highways, shopping malls, and other urban developments leaving less and less land for acquisition and expansion for our farmers. If farmers can’t acquire, expand, and grow, but our population still continues to increase, where will we get our food?  It will come from overseas, not down the street. It will come from big factory farms that are hazardous to our environment, mistreat our animals, and change the genetic codes of our food… It will… And it is… Wendell Berry states, “To be interested in food, but not our food

Here’s the idea: Hold a music festival, raise money to buy 40+ acres of farmland in Lincolnton and lease it to a farmer. Then, next year, raise more money, buy more land and support more regional farmers. And on … and on …

Will it work? Zack Wyatt thinks so. And he wants to prove it to you.

Wyatt, 35, started the Carolina Farm Trust earlier this year with a mission to “protect farmland and foster an ecosystem of sustainable farming,” according to its website. The group hopes to buy land and lease it back to farmers, giving new farmers access to land and allowing existing farms to expand, and support farmers in any way it can.

The money for that, Wyatt hopes, will come from Carolina Jubilee, a music festival Oct. 16-17 at VanHoy Farms