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| A USSR stamp celebrating collective farming among other things. |
I am very happy to see that the Selectmen are taking a new look at Busa Farm usage. We do not need a town-funded farm that ignores more important town priorities such as affordable housing and recreation.
Spending $517,000 per acre of taxpayer money (actually, almost $800,000, since only 5 acres are arable) to buy a working farm, only to roll it out as a gift to locavore foodies, is absurd. Wilson’s Farm is now successfully providing community supported agriculture shares in a normal business-like manner – so there is no need of a $4 million dollar subsidy to create a competing farm. The LexFarm plan is based on unrealistic assumptions: the Busa Farm has less than half the acreage of the Waltham community farm, yet LexFarm expects to sell the same number of shares at the same price. If LexFarm wants to run a non-profit farm, they should buy one with their own dime from contributions rather than trying to pull a bait-and-switch trick on the taxpayers, who thought they were getting some open space with affordable housing, recreation, and community gardens.
Or perhaps LexFarm should switch over to playing Farmville – the organization shows no inclination to actually run the farm and plans instead to outsource the actual dirt work to a professional farmer anyway.
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State ownership of farms in Cuba may have caused a shortage of playing fields. |
Spending $517,000 per acre of taxpayer money (actually, almost $800,000, since only 5 acres are arable) to buy a working farm, only to roll it out as a gift to locavore foodies, is absurd. Wilson’s Farm is now successfully providing community supported agriculture shares in a normal business-like manner – so there is no need of a $4 million dollar subsidy to create a competing farm. The LexFarm plan is based on unrealistic assumptions: the Busa Farm has less than half the acreage of the Waltham community farm, yet LexFarm expects to sell the same number of shares at the same price. If LexFarm wants to run a non-profit farm, they should buy one with their own dime from contributions rather than trying to pull a bait-and-switch trick on the taxpayers, who thought they were getting some open space with affordable housing, recreation, and community gardens.
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| Farmville is a popular Facebook game by Zynga |
Or perhaps LexFarm should switch over to playing Farmville – the organization shows no inclination to actually run the farm and plans instead to outsource the actual dirt work to a professional farmer anyway.
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