There's been a big expansion of the county's agricultural districts, including on Grand Island.
Every couple of years, the county opens registration for land to go into agricultural districts, with the protections involved. This time, there were 50 requests for 86 pieces of land to be added to the districts. Almost all accepted were plots of land of varying sizes on Grand Island, from 110 acres to several less than one acre.
Legislature Chairman John Mills is in the food business, including some large farms in Florida. Mills says the farms in Eden are good for the economy.
" A lot of produce (from Eden) is shipped out of our area to places because of the quality of produce. Some of it's organic produce," Mills said.
"They don't use a lot of pesticides on their produce growing fields. They use organic, certain bugs that interact with other bugs that kill other bugs."
Mills says some Eden farmers are expanding, buying up farm land rather than seeing that land sold for development.
The Regional Economic Development Council has made agriculture a priority in local development.
