RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia's new agriculture commissioner can point to two framed photographs in his office to illustrate the arc of his family's successful, century-long farming story in the Shenandoah Valley.
Matt Lohr stands before the faded colors of an aerial photograph from the 1950s showing fields and few outbuildings, while a contemporary image shows the additions of four poultry houses. The family farm has grown, adding what Lohr calls "agri-tainment" — a corn maze and a pumpkin patch to attract visitors.
Lohr, a former three-term Republican delegate from Rockingham County, plans to bring some of those lessons to his new job as commissioner of the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
"You have to be innovative," Lohr says of operating a successful farm. "You have to have a desire to be profitable and a desire to try new things, and that's how our farm survived for 100 years."
Lohr, 38, grew up on his family's 250-acre farm in Broadway, raising poultry, cattle and an assortment of crops. He, his wife, Andrea, and their two children, 9 and 4, live in the house where his father, Gary Lohr, was born and raised. As a boy, he worked side-by-side with his grandfather, the late Lester Lohr.
He paid his way through Virginia Tech with money he made farming and raising livestock.
While he served in the General Assembly, he was in charge of growing back home on the farm so it wouldn't interfere with his work in Richmond during the winter months.
"Agriculture has always been my passion from the time I was a little kid and basically everything I've ever done has been tied to farming and agriculture," Lohr said in an interview with The Associated Press.
But Lohr knows the statistics. Most Virginia farmers have to find off-farm jobs to keep the farm going.
According to the U.S. Census of Agriculture, 27,089 of Virginia's 47,383 principal farm operators identified other work as their occupation. The figure reflects the national average, according to the last farm census in 2007.
So Lohr is stressing another duty as commissioner: job creation. He is hopeful that by creating jobs in farming areas, more farmers will keep farming.
"We've got to get jobs in rural Virginia, and part of that is it's important to sustain the agricultural industry, as well," he said.
Lohr sees a natural affinity with certain industries and farming.
In the Shenandoah Valley, he said, a couple of companies are considering plans to convert animal waste to energy. Rockingham County is the No. 1 agricultural county in Virginia, with cattle, crops and agritourism a big part of that distinction. Poultry is also big.
Hobey Bauhan, president of the Virginia Poultry Federation, said he has fielded queries on converting poultry waste, which is hauled away by truck and spread on farm fields. The Shenandoah Valley generates prodigious amounts of poultry litter with 950 commercial poultry operators in the area raising hundreds of millions of birds.
Lohr said, "If we can have a company come in to take half of this poultry litter out of the watershed and convert it to electricity, that's a win-win for everybody."
That also ties into agriculture's role in the Chesapeake Bay's environmental decline. Like many in Virginia's agricultural community, Lohr is concerned about a federal plan to restore the bay.
Federal Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson said the plan will hold everyone to higher levels of accountability than ever before.
Lohr is wary of what that might entail. Some are fearful they'll have to invest in more fencing around brooks and streams that feed the bay to keep livestock from fouling the water, while others shudder at new, costly regulations.
Lohr acknowledges agriculture contributes to the bay's problems, but he's concerned that farmers who live on the margins will be asked to shoulder too much of the burden for a few "bad actors" in the industry.
"This is a big step because it's the first time the federal government is stepping in and dictating practices that our farmers are utilizing," Lohr said. "That's very concerning."
An EPA spokesman did not return e-mail or telephone messages left by the AP.
Appointed by Gov. Bob McDonnell, Lohr succeeds Todd Haymore as head of the 500-employee department. Haymore will continue to promote a passion in his new position: the export of Virginia's agricultural and forestry products.
Lohr's just fine with that arrangement.
"We're really a team," he said of Haymore and himself. "My job is a little more day-to-day running the agency."
As for Haymore, he was in London on a trade mission and confident the agency he ran for 2 1/2 years was in good hands.
"Because Matt's a farmer, he's going to bring a very interesting perspective to the office," Haymore said in a telephone interview. "I quite honestly don't think we could have picked anyone better."
