SYRACUSE — There is more than one purpose to the state’s largest corn maze opening next week in Syracuse.
While the owners of Black Island Farms hope families and friends will come to enjoy the more than five miles of paths over 25 acres, they also hope they will learn something about farms and farming.
And they hope they will support the preservation of those farms.
The issue is critical now, according to Dorathy Law, marketing director, because one of the proposed routes for the west-side corridor cuts right through the farm.
“That will hurt us desperately,” said Law, the daughter-in-law of Charles Black, owner.
“When you take away farm land you can’t bring it back,” she said.
If the United States keeps developing farmland, we will eventually become dependant on foreign soils for fruit and vegetables, just as we are for oil, she said.
Development “takes away our heritage,” she said. “What’s left after that? Is that what we want to leave for future generations?”
Black Island Farms was one of the first to participate in the Utah Agriculture Protection Act, which allows them to continue to own and farm the land on their western border, but preserves it so that no roads or permanent structures will ever be built on it.
Black Island Farms has also diversified, adding activities such as the corn maze and the nearby but separate Nightmare Acres Haunted Barn, to help raise funds.
“We don’t make a ton of money, but we are determined,” said Law.
For more information check out the Sept.20 edition of Davis Clipper.
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