In this episode, Jason and Patrick Heizer speak to Kristina Bostick
about the Montgomery County Agricultural Reserve. Directly northwest of
Washington DC, Montgomery County is Maryland's most populated county,
with well over one million residents. In 1980, the Montgomery County
Council made one of the most significant land-use decisions in US
history by creating the Agricultural Reserve. Heralded as one of the
best examples of land conservation policies in the country, the
Agricultural Reserve encompasses 93,000 contiguous acres – almost a
third of the country’s land. Today, the Reserve comprises hundreds of
working farms that produce a variety of products plus trails and parks
for public use. Moreover, it provides habitat for wildlife, helps the
region meet its clean water commitments to the Chesapeake Bay, hosts
educational field trips for schools and is a hub of agritourism, and
much more, all within 30 minutes of Washington, DC.

Kristina Bostick is Senior Conservation Associate at the Montgomery
Countryside Alliance (https://www.mocoalliance.org/). She grew up in
Montgomery County (hiking Sugarloaf every year on her birthday) and has
returned after a number of years in North Carolina where she earned her
Masters in Public Administration and worked on numerous environmental
issues, including stormwater mitigation and greening local governments.
Kristina values all the ways the Ag Reserve benefits the Chesapeake Bay
region but nothing beats the excitement of a weekly CSA box or the first
peaches of summer, all grown right here!

Patrick Heizer is a simple guy. He is a husband and a father who is a
research & development biomedical engineer at AstraZeneca and a
permaculture farmer in Frederick County, Maryland. He writes The
Counterpoint substack and can be found on Twitter @PatrickHeizer (https://twitter.com/PatrickHeizer).

Montgomery Countryside Alliance is a small (but mighty!) nonprofit
organization dedicated to the protection of Montgomery County's 40-year
commitment to thriving farms - the Agricultural Reserve. The Reserve is a
unique zoning framework that has prioritized growth near transit and
keeping small family farms on the landscape near a busy metro area.

MCA's Programs include:

Land Link - Matching new and expanding farmers with landowners offering
long-term leases in Montgomery County (http://www.mocolandlink.org/)

Re-Leaf the Reserve - MCA's program in partnership with Park and
Planning's Tree Montgomery to re-forest stream buffers with forest
conservation easements (https://www.mocoalliance.org/releaf.html)

Join us for the Ride for the Reserve Bike Tour on 9/24/23 (https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ride-for-the-ag-reserve-bike-tour-and-festival-tickets-676420862007?aff=oddtdtcreator)

Our Linktree: https://linktr.ee/mocoalliance

Other resources I shared:

Land For Good (Land Purchase and Lease Resources) (https://landforgood.org/)
Future Harvest Farmer Training (https://futureharvest.org/programs/beginner-farmer-training-program/)

ECO City Incubator/Training (https://www.ecoffshoots.org/)

Pro Publica Interactive Climate Changes Map of US (https://projects.propublica.org/climate-migration/)