A farming program is coming to the Volusia County jail next year, after the County Council gave the go-ahead at Thursday's meeting.
Council Vice Chairman Matt Reinhart says the program is a longtime dream of his after 30 years working in corrections and battling recidivism.
“It teaches them a skill,” he said of the inmates. “Farming is a skill, folks. It also helps address the mental health issue. It's a win, win, win all the way around to me.”
Reinhart also focused on the potential cost savings of the program and the mental health benefits.
The council unanimously approved Phase I, a vegetable farm on one acre. It will cost an estimated $156,000 to set up and could net about $7,000 a year selling produce to the jail’s vendor Aramark.
The initial plan -- based on Aramark’s menus -- calls for lettuce, cabbage, carrots, potatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers and onions. But council members suggested additional crops, like eggplant and collard greens, and made a case for honey bees.
The inmate farmers won't get paid -- but they'll earn gain time, and avoid the $5-a-day subsistence fee.
Phase II is a more costly chicken program producing eggs on the farm side of the jail compound.
County Director of Public Protection Randa Matusiak spelled out the chicken farm’s expenses at around $450,000 to get started and up to $180,000 in recurring costs.
No decision was made on that. First, she asked for time to get the vegetable operation going.
“[W]e could put some crops in the ground as early … as, January, probably March, though, really,” she said. “And then what we'd appreciate is really an 18-month period where we can step into this, see what the benefits are, see what the impact is, and then be able to bring something back to you after that 18 month period to kind of assess where we are and put together some plans for moving forward.”
And that’s what the council approved.
The jail currently has a master gardener certification program, two greenhouses and some hydroponics outside for growing lettuce, she said.
The sheriff’s offices in Manatee and Marion counties already have large, long-established work farms that train inmates and provide food for jail consumption. For Volusia County to move in that direction would require additional acreage.
