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Your New Neighbors are Costing You a Fortune · Relatively Stable

• 0:10
  Your new neighbors are costing you a fortune While developers
• 0:16
  flip pastures
• 0:18
  Taxpayers are left subsidizing the sprawl Let's talk about land
• 0:26
  prices I remember
• 0:30
  where I was standing in the middle of the riding ring in the
• 0:33
  spring of 2020
• 0:36
  All the parents sitting at the fence line started receiving
• 0:39
  alerts on their phones
• 0:41
  saying that schools will be closed for the foreseeable future
• 0:44
  due to a virus.
• 0:47
  The world had just tilted on its axis and at the time no one
• 0:52
  knew what would happen
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: to the land we were standing on.
• 0:56
  As time went on people started leaving big cities and many of
• 1:01
  them came here where
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: I live in the upstate of South Carolina
• 1:07
  We were already in a housing shortage with supply failing to
• 1:12
  meet demand by a landslide.
• 1:15
  Pair that with the average sales price of a house in a
• 1:18
  Connecticut suburb or the
• 1:19
  coast of California and we had thousands of cash rich buyers
• 1:24
  ready to purchase
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: sight unseen.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Local buyers were outbid before they could even make an offer.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Since the start of the pandemic,
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: my greater metro region,
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: covering roughly 2,710 square miles,
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: has added over 100,000 new residents.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Last year,
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: we reached the economic milestone of a million residents,
• 1:51
  a number that made headlines and will attract more national
• 1:54
  retailers and corporate
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: headquarters.
• 1:58
  It's also a number that boggles my mind and makes me think back
• 2:01
  to the broody kid I
• 2:03
  used to be in art school trying to carve her way out of this
• 2:06
  rural prison and make
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: her way to a big city.
• 2:10
  I'm so glad that that kid decided through desperation and
• 2:14
  chance to dig into the
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: ground and ditch her metro dreams.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: The Mother of Invention
• 2:25
  South Carolina ranks 42nd in schools but before the pandemic we
• 2:31
  were already a
• 2:32
  smart destination for the automotive and aerospace industries
• 2:36
  to build plants take
• 2:38
  advantage of tax incentives and benefit from our hypothetical
• 2:42
  low cost of living
• 2:45
  BMW has brought great German friends to the farm along with
• 2:49
  French friends from
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Michelin
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: We're surrounded by Swedish, Belgian, and Dutch transplants.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: The sister city of Greenville, South Carolina is Bergamo, Italy.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up listening to new wave, techno, and industrial music.
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  SPEAKER_00: I still do.
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  SPEAKER_00: As a self-righteous art school teen,
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: anything European was better,
• 3:13
  and my little pocket of the rural Deep South delivered with all
• 3:17
  the random cultural
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: influences.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: As I launched into the world and started a farm,
• 3:22
  I looked to European models to inspire my horse keeping ideas
• 3:26
  and creative use of
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: acreage.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Plus,
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  European sport horses were just better when my main goal was
• 3:33
  steering big horses
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: over jumps.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still a sucker for a Dutch warm blood.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: They make my knees weak.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: They're smart, kind, and confident.
• 3:45
  European track systems are ingenious innovations of
• 3:49
  meticulously planned layouts
• 3:52
  that replace open square paddocks with winding paths designed
• 3:57
  to keep horses
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  SPEAKER_00: moving.
• 3:59
  They're a sophisticated artistic choice and I admired them
• 4:04
  thinking that one day I
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: would be able to design a track system of my own
• 4:10
  To my American sensibilities raised on the big land ideal of
• 4:15
  rolling open pastures,
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: these tracks feel like a luxury import.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: I admire the results.
• 4:23
  Horses on tracks are fitter and mentally engaged because their
• 4:28
  environment forces
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  SPEAKER_00: them to travel miles a day between hay,
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  SPEAKER_00: water,
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  SPEAKER_00: and shelter,
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  SPEAKER_00: mimicking the natural movement of a wild herd.
• 4:38
  But it's only recently that I'm seeing that tracks aren't just
• 4:41
  a stylistic
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: preference or a quest for the next big thing in equestrian care.
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  SPEAKER_00: They're a survival strategy.
• 4:50
  In the high-density landscapes of countries like the
• 4:53
  Netherlands and the UK,
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  SPEAKER_00: land is a finite luxury.
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  SPEAKER_00: When your back 40 is actually a back 4,
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  you can't afford to let a horse stand in a muddy corner and
• 5:04
  overgraze the center.
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  These systems were born from a geographic bottleneck and the
• 5:11
  realization that if
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: you can't have more land you have to make the land work for you harder.
• 5:18
  The Europeans innovated because they had no other choice and in
• 5:22
  doing so they
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  SPEAKER_00: turned limited acreage into a dynamic high performance habitat.
• 5:29
  From a recent post by horse trainer and cattle farmer Kathleen
• 5:33
  Beckham she said
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  SPEAKER_00: Luxury for us,
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  SPEAKER_00: the humans,
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  SPEAKER_00: is stained wood,
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  SPEAKER_00: chandeliers,
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  SPEAKER_00: a heated wash stall,
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  SPEAKER_00: a fancy lounge and bathroom,
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  SPEAKER_00: and pavers down the aisle.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's what we think of as a luxury.
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  SPEAKER_00: That way we can keep 20 horses on 5 acres or even less.
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  SPEAKER_00: But that's not luxury for horses.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's luxury for people.
• 5:59
  but if we could see what's luxury for horses as worth it for
• 6:04
  our horses we could
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  save the land we figure out how to beat the developers at their
• 6:09
  own game because
• 6:11
  that's what it's going to take if we could see pasture as a
• 6:15
  luxury we just pay
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: developer prices to keep pasture land as pasture the cost
• 6:26
  The rapid influx of people into my region pushed the
• 6:29
  urban-rural interface further
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  SPEAKER_00: into our pastures than ever before.
• 6:34
  We used to be the quiet outskirts of Greer and Simpsonville and
• 6:38
  Boiling Springs,
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  but it's now the front lines of a massive demographic shift
• 6:44
  where the cultural
• 6:45
  expectation of endless land is finally meeting the reality of a
• 6:49
  finite map.
• 6:52
  I put off buying land for 30 years because it never seemed like
• 6:55
  the right time or
• 6:57
  the barn displayed and the real estate ad was less useful than
• 7:01
  the facility I
• 7:02
  leased and then last fall we learned that the land we'd rented
• 7:06
  for 20 years was
• 7:07
  being developed we had to move through no act of my own other
• 7:13
  than desperation and
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: survival we purchased Lavender Hill formerly known as Holly Springs Acres
• 7:21
  an old farmhouse renovated by the Lavender family in the mid
• 7:24
  20th century the farm
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  had been on the market for a year waiting for the right buyer
• 7:30
  to show up the day
• 7:32
  our realtor put in an offer another offer arrived from a buyer
• 7:36
  wanting to build an
• 7:38
  Airbnb complex of dome houses in the fields I later learned
• 7:43
  this from the neighbors
• 7:45
  The only reason the seller chose us over them was that I cashed
• 7:49
  out my retirement
• 7:50
  to match the offer and the seller appreciated our goal of
• 7:55
  keeping the land intact
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: as a farm.
• 7:59
  Ten years ago,
• 8:00
  the 30 acres on which Lavender Hill rests were valued at
• 8:04
  $450,000.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Today, it is valued at over $1.3 million.
• 8:13
  Let's crunch those numbers while also keeping in mind that most
• 8:17
  tax authorities and
• 8:18
  agricultural boards don't classify horse pursuits as
• 8:22
  agriculture unless there is a
• 8:24
  clear product like foals and their mamas leaving the equestrian
• 8:29
  world in a
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  SPEAKER_00: vulnerable gray area.
• 8:32
  The primary threat to the entire agricultural landscape of my
• 8:36
  region is a lopsided
• 8:38
  economic scale that makes a subdivision far more valuable on
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  paper than a stable no
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  SPEAKER_00: matter what it's producing.
• 8:47
  Before 2020 farmland in the upstate of South Carolina was
• 8:51
  expensive by agricultural
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: standards but it was still comprehensible as farm country.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Following a period of stabilization from 2014 to 2020,
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: U.S.
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  farmland values began appreciating sharply in 2021 and have
• 9:09
  continued to rise.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: The compound annualized growth rate for U.S.
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  SPEAKER_00: farmland from 2019 to 2024 was 5.8% per year,
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: according to the USDA.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: In my region's high-demand counties, the numbers are far more dramatic.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Today,
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  SPEAKER_00: land in Greenville County runs $60,000 to $70,000 per acre on average,
• 9:39
  with prices near the city and in areas like Travelers Rest
• 9:43
  pushing to $80,000 to
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: $150,000 per acre.
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  SPEAKER_00: For context, pasture land across the southeast
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  Florida Alabama Georgia and South Carolina together averaged
• 9:58
  five thousand five
• 9:59
  hundred and ten dollars per acre in 2024 the gap between what
• 10:04
  land is worth as a
• 10:05
  farm and what a developer will pay for it it's no longer a gap
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  it's a canyon there
• 10:12
  is no single price for land there is what the land is worth
• 10:17
  when it is priced as
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: farmland based on what it can produce and what it will lease for
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  And there is what the same land is worth the moment someone
• 10:25
  draws a subdivision map
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  SPEAKER_00: on top of it.
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  Those are two entirely different conversations happening
• 10:31
  simultaneously in almost
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: every rural county in the U.S.
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  SPEAKER_00: right now.
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  SPEAKER_00: A large agricultural parcel,
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  SPEAKER_00: 50 to 100 acres,
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  SPEAKER_00: typically sales at a lower per acre rate than a small developable lot.
• 10:49
  In Greenville County,
• 10:51
  the median price for larger tracks runs around $18,750 per
• 10:57
  acre.
• 10:59
  Small,
• 10:59
  developable lots under two acres in the same county hit a
• 11:03
  median of $100,000 per acre.
• 11:08
  That is a premium a developer pays in the same county to slice
• 11:12
  something into pieces.
• 11:14
  The moment someone signals that a piece of farm ground might be
• 11:18
  subdivided,
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  SPEAKER_00: they are no longer selling farmland.
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  SPEAKER_00: They're selling the future ghost of what used to be there.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the losses have been staggering.
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  South Carolina lost more than 280,000 acres of farmland between
• 11:33
  2001 and 2016 alone.
• 11:39
  making it the eighth most at risk state in the country
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  according to the American
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Farmland Trust.
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  Current legislative testimony puts the total land lost over the
• 11:49
  last two decades at
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  SPEAKER_00: nearly 400,000 acres.
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  This valuation gap means that a 50 acre farm might be worth
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  $250,000 as a working
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  SPEAKER_00: agricultural entity but upwards of $4 million to a developer.
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  SPEAKER_00: This disparity creates pressure for the highest and best use,
• 12:12
  which makes it increasingly difficult for the next generation
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  of farmers to keep
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  SPEAKER_00: their roots in the soil.
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  I write to you each week because I believe that 30 acres of
• 12:24
  dirt is worth more than
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: a million dollars of concrete.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: By becoming a free or thank you paid subscriber to Stable Roots,
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: you aren't just reading a weekly essay.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: You are helping keep a voice in the room where the decisions are made.
• 12:39
  You give me the ability to fight for the soil,
• 12:42
  the silence,
• 12:43
  and the stables.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you believe the rural void is worth saving, consider joining us.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Let's keep the horizon stretching one acre at a time.
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  The Hidden Subsidy of Open Space This valuation gap makes it
• 13:05
  hard to find land to
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: keep horses,
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  and it is a fundamental flaw in how we measure the worth of the
• 13:12
  rural countryside.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: On paper,
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: a $4 million subdivision looks like a win for the local tax base,
• 13:20
  but what we're not seeing is that agricultural land actually
• 13:23
  subsidizes residential
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: development.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: For every dollar a farm like ours pays in taxes.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: It typically requires less than 40 cents in public services.
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  A farm doesn't ask for new schools,
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  an expanded police force,
• 13:41
  or a municipal trash pickup.
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  SPEAKER_00: Most farms run on wells.
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  SPEAKER_00: They don't need elaborate public water upgrades.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Conversely,
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: for every dollar a subdivision pays in taxes,
• 13:55
  the county often spends over $1.15 to provide the
• 13:59
  infrastructure and services those
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: households require.
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  SPEAKER_00: For every cul-de-sac paved over dirt,
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: we are losing a self-sustaining landscape,
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: trading it for a perpetual public liability.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: When we allow developers to pave over the urban-rural interface,
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: we are losing the ecological sponge of a metro's outlying areas.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: A working farm manages its own stormwater.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: The trees filter the air, cooling the local climate.
• 14:33
  A dome house complex or a high-density neighborhood replaces
• 14:37
  that sponge with an asphalt funnel
• 14:40
  Pushing the cost of drainage and environmental mitigation back
• 14:44
  onto the taxpayer.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Valuing the product of stewardship.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: To beat the developers at their own game,
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: we have to start valuing the gray areas between big cities.
• 14:59
  We have to stop viewing open space as undeveloped land waiting
• 15:03
  for a purpose.
• 15:05
  What if we saw farmland as a fully employed entity,
• 15:09
  an essential buffer to growth?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: We still have a rigid 19th century definition of agriculture.
• 15:18
  If the state only recognizes land as agricultural when it's
• 15:22
  churning out a physical
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: product,
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: like bales of hay,
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: bushels of corn,
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: or foals and their mamas,
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: it ignores the most vital product a modern farm provides,
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: stewardship.
• 15:39
  This is where ideas like the European track systems become our
• 15:44
  most powerful tool
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: for the future.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: By adopting these intensive management styles,
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: we demonstrate that even on small acreages,
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: we can deliver a high-level ecological service.
• 15:59
  A well-managed tract system keeps a horse fit while also
• 16:03
  managing nitrogen runoff,
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: sequestering carbon in permanent soil,
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: and preserving the biodiversity that a mowed subdivision lawn destroys.
• 16:14
  If we want to keep our roots stable in a region of a million
• 16:18
  people in your region
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: of however many people you have around you,
• 16:23
  then we must fight for a definition of agriculture that
• 16:27
  recognizes the service of
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: the land as a product just as valuable as the livestock upon it.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: For our neck of the woods,
• 16:37
  we must quickly decide that the unpaved corners of Greenville
• 16:40
  County are worth more
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: to us as lungs for our city than lots for our sprawl.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because once that $1.3 million patch of dirt is buried under concrete,
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: no amount of innovation can ever bring the soil back to life.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: A Shifting Map The Life of Lavender Hill
• 17:06
  The history of the land I now work and live on reflects my
• 17:10
  region's contraction.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: In the late 1700s,
• 17:14
  when the original land grants were carved out of what was then
• 17:17
  the wild frontier of
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: the new American Republic,
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: this plot was a part of a sprawling 200-acre expanse.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: By the mid-1800s,
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: it had been absorbed into a massive 1,100-acre plantation,
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: a time when land was the primary currency of power,
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: and the horizon seemed to have no end.
• 17:40
  But we know now that this was not ideal for the people who had
• 17:43
  no choice but to
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: work the land and fill plantation owners' coffers.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: By the 20th century,
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: the 1,100 acres were sliced into homesteads,
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: then subdivisions,
• 17:57
  then smaller rural parcels until only 30 acres remained of the
• 18:02
  original heart of
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: the farm.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: Standing on those 30 acres today,
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: I realize that what was once an infinite horizon has become a finite,
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: precious commodity that the law is only just beginning to protect.
• 18:19
  I'm incredibly lucky because my neighbors are generational
• 18:22
  cattle farmers whose
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: roots can be traced back to the land I'm now on.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like me, they want to preserve green space.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: The Legislative Fight
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: For a long time, the momentum was entirely on the developer's side.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: But recently, the people of South Carolina have begun to fight back.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: We are seeing a new wave of preservation-first thinking,
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: led by operations like AMPM Farms,
• 18:54
  a local cattle farm that secured a conservation easement when
• 18:57
  the land across the
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: street from their farm was slated for development.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like all the changes since 2020,
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: The owners of AMPM had to work through the supply chain collapse.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: They created a local food fortress in response to uncertainty,
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: and now they continue to innovate by preserving land.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: For me,
• 19:20
  the most tangible sign that the tide is turning came with a
• 19:23
  recent legal victory in
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: a section of northern Greenville County that used to be my family's land.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: My father's three acres still remain there,
• 19:31
  walking distance from where the Alliance to Preserve the Old
• 19:35
  White Horse Road
• 19:36
  Corridor fought against a proposed 73-unit subdivision called
• 19:41
  the Stables,
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: an ironic name for the very lifestyle it would have displaced.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: In April 2026,
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: after a grueling legal battle,
• 19:52
  the South Carolina Court of Appeals reversed the approval for
• 19:55
  the development.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: The court's decision was a landmark moment for our region.
• 20:01
  It recognized that a high density subdivision sandwiched
• 20:05
  between equestrian
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: facilities was an incompatible use of the land.
• 20:10
  It validated the concerns of the neighbors who argued that
• 20:13
  7,800 square foot lots
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: have no place in a corridor defined by pastures and historic trails.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: And there are also slow shifts happening in the political sphere.
• 20:26
  admittedly late to the party but promising in the absence of an
• 20:31
  immediate alternative.
• 20:33
  The Working Agricultural Lands Preservation Act was signed into
• 20:37
  law in early 2024.
• 20:40
  It created a permanent program within the South Carolina
• 20:42
  Conservation Bank
• 20:44
  specifically dedicated to funding conservation easements on
• 20:48
  working farms.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Building on that momentum,
• 20:52
  the South Carolina Protected Lands and Conservation
• 20:56
  Coordination Act was moved
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: through the legislature in early 2026.
• 21:02
  This ambitious bill sets a statewide benchmark to protect 7
• 21:06
  million acres by 2050,
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: roughly one-third of the state.
• 21:12
  It acknowledges that our natural resources and working lands
• 21:16
  are essential state
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: interest,
• 21:19
  shifting the narrative from viewing farms as vacant lots to
• 21:22
  viewing them as
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: critical infrastructure.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: This is the reality that we're living in.
• 21:31
  The Call to Action The people who arrived here since 2020
• 21:37
  didn't just bring their belongings.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: They brought a different set of expectations.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: They cashed out in California,
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: New York,
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: and Connecticut and bought our dirt sight unseen,
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: treating our resources like a discount commodity.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Some came to work remotely from a charming travel destination,
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: turning our quiet back roads into high-speed fiber-optic corridors.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Others came to escape,
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: to homestead and homeschool,
• 22:09
  searching for a slice of self-reliance that they are
• 22:12
  paradoxically destroying by
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: sheer volume.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: They want the view but not the smell of manure.
• 22:20
  They want the aesthetic of the farmhouse but they don't want
• 22:23
  the slow-moving
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: tractor on the road during their morning commute.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: We have to be brutal about the math.
• 22:32
  We are no longer living in the deep south of land grants and
• 22:36
  infinite horizons.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: We are living in the bottleneck.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a horse person,
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: a cattle farmer,
• 22:43
  or just someone who likes to breathe air that hasn't been
• 22:46
  filtered through a
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: neighbor's HVAC system,
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: you are in a war of attrition.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: The developers aren't just building houses.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: They are harvesting the future ghost of my region.
• 22:58
  They are banking on our politeness and our slow realization
• 23:02
  that the back 40 is gone.
• 23:05
  They are betting that we won't notice that a $4 million
• 23:08
  subdivision is actually a
• 23:10
  tax drain that every single one of us will pay for in the
• 23:14
  broken infrastructure and
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: flooded basements for the next 30 years.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: This is my call to action.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: Stop playing nice with the idea of progress.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: We have to beat the developers at their own game.
• 23:31
  We have to demand that our county councils stop treating our
• 23:36
  farms like land
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: waiting for a purpose.
• 23:40
  We must insist that stewardship is a taxable,
• 23:44
  valuable,
• 23:45
  protected product.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: If we don't,
• 23:48
  we will wake up in five years in a region of 1.2 million people
• 23:53
  with plenty of
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: national retailers and corporate headquarters,
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: but nowhere left to ride,
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: nowhere left to graze and nowhere left to see the horizon.
• 24:06
  I cashed out my retirement to save this farm and by this farm I
• 24:10
  mean the entity
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: that has survived leasing,
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: scrounging and moving because I refuse to let a lifetime of fields,
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: sweat,
• 24:19
  hay dust and barns become a footnote in a developer's quarterly
• 24:24
  earnings report but
• 24:26
  this wasn't a singular action I took we're safely and
• 24:32
  permanently at Lavender Hill
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: now
• 24:34
  because of the immediate and combined action of people who had
• 24:38
  been a part of our
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: farm for 50 years,
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: decades before I started my lesson program there.
• 24:46
  And I was one of those kids who signed up for lessons at the
• 24:49
  old farm in the mid-1980s.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: Our connection to land is generational.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: It crosses space and time.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: And yet the universe has a wicked sense of humor.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: Today,
• 25:03
  I received a delinquent tax notice because the county spent the
• 25:07
  last eight months
• 25:09
  mailing the statements to the previous owner who apparently
• 25:12
  decided that not my
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: farm,
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: not my problem was a solid life philosophy.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be that person.
• 25:21
  Trying to call a county office to explain this and have the
• 25:23
  late fees removed is a
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: special kind of purgatory.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's like trying to explain the concept of joy to a spreadsheet.
• 25:31
  Talking to people who are paid to worship the protocol and not
• 25:35
  the big picture is
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: like arguing with the IRS,
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: only with more please hold music and less hope of human outcome.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: The wheels of bureaucracy don't just move slowly.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: They move with the rhythmic,
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: indifferent thud of a horse who's decided it's done working for the day.
• 25:55
  like an acquaintance that served time once said of the justice
• 25:58
  system that bitch
• 26:00
  isn't blind she's greedy this is the tax we pay for holding the
• 26:07
  line but it also
• 26:09
  gives us a voice and a vote about what we allow to happen to
• 26:13
  the land around us so
• 26:16
  I'm asking you what are you willing to do are you willing to
• 26:21
  cash out your safe
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: future for a muddy present
• 26:25
  Are you willing to fight the people who see our pastures as
• 26:28
  nothing more than
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: unpaved parking lots?
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't just about the upstate of South Carolina.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: This is about the world.
• 26:38
  Because once our dirt is buried under six inches of concrete,
• 26:41
  the conversation is over.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: The soil doesn't get a please hold.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's not transferred to a supervisor.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: The land goes straight to auctions.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: it doesn't get a second chance and neither do we love Kim P.S.
• 27:05
  if you believe the rural void is worth saving please consider
• 27:09
  becoming a paid
• 27:10
  subscriber your support ensures that Stable Roots remains a
• 27:14
  voice for the soil in a
• 27:16
  world that only hears the sound of concrete pouring it helps me
• 27:20
  stay at the table
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: keep the research going
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: and fight for the unpaved corners of our lives.