The Durham County farm campus project—a long-awaited agricultural education center and incubator farm—passed a milestone Monday as county commissioners received the final feasibility study for the 129-acre Orange Factory Road property.
A presentation of the study revealed both ambitious plans and looming challenges for the project, which has been in development for more than a decade.
“We’re at a transition point now,” said County Extension Director Donna Rewalt, who presented at the commissioners’ Monday work session alongside Derek Fleming of HR&A Advisors, the firm that conducted the study. “This study represents both the culmination of work and the beginning of new directions.”
The farm campus will function as an incubator for new farmers, providing plots of land, equipment, and technical assistance to help develop agricultural skills and businesses. The campus will also include “post-harvest education facilities” where farmers can learn processing techniques; a shared commercial kitchen space for developing foods like jams, pickles, and sauces that increase the value of raw goods; and a “healing garden” designed as a peaceful refuge for community members.
The feasibility study, which gathered input from over 100 survey respondents and nearly 60 focus group participants, determined that the project could succeed. The Orange Factory Road site, which the county purchased last year, is especially befitting for agricultural development because of its fertile soil, existing buildings that can be adapted for new uses, and natural resources like ponds and wooded areas, according to the study.
But between the lines of the optimistic presentation lurked concerns about funding. Fleming and Rewalt repeatedly alluded to a dramatically changed funding landscape, noting that a USDA grant they had expected to apply for “no longer exists.”
“When we initiated this process, we were operating in a different environment than what we see today,” Fleming told commissioners. “We have to think more creatively” about funding sources, he said.
The feasibility study suggests the project will primarily rely on county funding, supplemented by potential grants and revenue from programming, but does not address how to navigate the new funding constraints. Commissioner Wendy Jacobs asked how the county plans to fund the project going forward.
“Realistically, we’re going to face challenges with all of the operational and capital costs,” Jacobs said. “… How are we actually going to make this happen?”
Fleming and Rewalt said they were exploring alternative funding sources and had a couple “queued up.” Fleming suggested working with mission-driven foundations and philanthropic organizations, as well as considering revenue-generating community events at the site.
“One of the cool things about the farm campus approach is there’s a lot of touchpoints,” Rewalt said. “There’s the sustainability and environmental aspects of this, there’s the agricultural aspect. All of these things intersect, as well as economic development pieces. So I think there’s a lot of sources, a lot of funders, that are going to find this type of work compelling.”
The study outlines a 10-year roll-out broken into three stages. The first phase would focus on essential groundwork: setting up the incubator farm, making safety upgrades, installing basic infrastructure. The second phase would expand farming operations. The final phase would add a commercial kitchen, event spaces, and recreational features including the healing garden and trails.
By full implementation, the farm campus is projected to require four full-time staff positions: a program director, farm manager, education coordinator, and food facility coordinator. Commissioner Mike Lee questioned whether four staff members would be sufficient for the long term.
“That’s all we feel we need going out to 10 years to manage this?” Lee asked.
Fleming responded that the staffing plan was based on projected growth and would leverage existing county resources. The farmers themselves will handle much of the day-to-day work, Fleming said, with additional support potentially coming from maintenance contracts rather than direct hires.
The governance structure presented in the study recommends placing Farm Campus staff within the county’s Cooperative Extension department, with a Community Steering Committee composed of local farmers, food entrepreneurs, and community leaders. Fleming said next steps include securing funding, recruiting the Steering Committee and sharing site plans with the public.
The feasibility study notes the importance of reaching immigrant and refugee communities, citing a successful model at Cary’s Good Hope Farm where immigrants work quarter-acre plots.
“This could be a wonderful opportunity to both benefit from their expertise,” Jacobs said, “and provide them with resources to succeed in our local food system.”
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