Do you work at home? Are you a telecommuter? Run a business from your home office? The Town of Carrboro wants to know how it can help you. On May 8 at 10 am in room 100 of the Carrboro Town Hall the Economic Development Department of the Town of Carrboro will be conducting a public forum to discuss this topic. Please share your needs and wants in the comments. If you know other people that work at home who might be interested in participating in the conversation, please invite them. If you can't make it let me know and we'll work on a second meeting.

One point that caught my attention in last Saturday's meeting to discuss Carrboro's Northern Study Area was the idea of "metro-farming". The current plan includes:

ENCOURAGE “METRO-FARMING”: Encourage the conservation of active farmland within new conservation subdivisions and elsewhere in the Study Area, with emphasis on nontraditional crops or uses (high-value vegetables, pick-your-own berries, apples, etc.) and community-supported agriculture (community gardening, wholesale nurseries, commercial stables, etc.). Metro-farming should be promoted by a special committee that would look into ways to make Use Value Assessments more common and frequently applied.

Yet this is an idea which has not yet been realized. With changing patterns of food consumption and agriculture, the availability of arable land available for small scale agriculture will become increasingly important in the future.