DATE: Wednesday, August 20, 1997            TAG: 9708200398

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LINDA McNATT, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: SUFFOLK                           LENGTH:   65 lines

AGRICULTURE OFFICIALS WANT TO MATCH UP PRISONS AND PRODUCE CORRECTIONS FACILITIES WOULD GROW WHAT THEY NEED AND THEN SELL THE REST.

In a few years, shoppers in Hampton Roads grocery stores could be buying strawberries and asparagus grown on Virginia prison farms.

And row crop farmers who now grow peanuts, cotton and soybeans could be growing vegetables on the side.

All of it depends on whether a plan to change the face of agriculture in Virginia works, and whether local producers meet the challenge of providing for consumer demands.

That's what members of the Virginia Farmers' Market Board said Tuesday, as they toured experimental fields at the Tidewater Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Suffolk.

The plan includes four farmers' markets across the state, two already operating.

In 1996, the combined profits of markets in Melfa, on the Eastern Shore, and Hillsville, in southwestern Virginia, were more than $17 million, said Susan K. Simpson, special programs manager for the Virginia Department of Agriculture.

Markets in Southampton County and Oak Grove, on the Northern Neck, are to open next spring.

``This is not small-time,'' said Simpson. ``A small producer can avail himself of the services of the wholesale farmers' market. They can have their produce graded, packed and cooled right there. It will open the Farm Fresh and the Ukrop's markets of the world to the small producer with less than 60 acres.''

The state plan encourages small farmers to grow more produce and large farmers to add produce to their crops. It also includes making farmers out of prisoners.

``More and more, the plan is to get prisons involved where labor is needed,'' Simpson said. ``They will contribute to their own needs by growing vegetables and sell the rest.''

The state has dedicated major resources to making the plan work, Simpson said.

Local Extension agents are adding their expertise and encouraging farmers to try produce, and research stations are experimenting with growing produce on small, irrigated plots to determine varieties best for the area.

The 14-member Farmers Market Board meets quarterly in different parts of the state where research is going on.

``We're going to make a strong effort here to support the Southeastern farmers' market,'' said Dr. Norris Powell, associate professor crop and soil environmental sciences at the agricultural center. ``That's why we're growing melons and sweet corn.''

In the afternoon, the board talked about existing markets and those under construction.

On the Eastern Shore, said market manager Jim Stern, it's been so successful that there's talk now about a regional wholesale seafood market.

With tomatoes and green peppers coming in at the same time, it's busy at the Southwest market, said board member Billie Taylor.

The state markets are purely wholesale, said Charles W. Coale Jr., a Virginia Tech extension economist and board member. But retail outlets often spring out of the wholesale establishments.

Hampton Roads would be a perfect place for that, Coale said.

For example, 14 retail farmers' markets serve metropolitan Washington, and even that many can't meet the demands.

``I think that consumers are going more and more toward wanting to know where the food they consume comes from,'' Coale said. ``It's all in understanding the stewardship of the process.''

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