County officials are moving forward on plans to create an agricultural incubator program that would allow new farmers to lease parkland at the Woodstock Equestrian Park near Beallsville.

The Montgomery County Planning Board supported the selection of the Darby Hub incubator site as part of a round-table discussion Thursday. Located in the Agricultural Reserve, the site would utilize 127 acres of parkland under a current agricultural lease in the western portion of Woodstock Equestrian Park. The reserve is 93,000 acres zoned for agricultural uses.

An incubator is a government-sponsored program designed to provide new entrepreneurs with startup assistance. Montgomery County runs an incubator program for life-science and technology businesses.

The small farm incubator would give new farmers access to affordable land, equipment, training and marketing assistance, said Charles Kines of the park planning and stewardship division of Montgomery County Department of Parks.

Thirteen large-scale farmers lease 935 acres of county parkland to grow commodity crops such as corn, hay and soy beans. The goal of the project is to increase the number of small organic farmers, and stimulate the local economy, Kines said.

The 865-acre Woodstock Equestrian Park is composed of land donated by Hermen Greenberg and the William Rickman Sr. Family, said Linda Komes, project manager for Woodstock Equestrian Park. The incubator will be located on the west side of the park, on land donated by Greenberg, who died in February.

Now that the land is under park control, the county can decide how it is used, said John Hench, chief of the park planning and stewardship division of the Department of Parks.

The land that would be used for the proposed incubator is farmed by commodity farmer Robert Jamison, who leases in 5-year cycles, said David Tobin, Equine Resources Coordinator with the parks department.

The lease allows the park to renegotiate the use of land with proper notice to the farmer, Tobin said.

"I think the incubator farm is great," Jamison said. "I think it's the coolest thing that they've thought about in a long while. I'm ready to rock and roll with it."

Jamison said his family been farming on the land for 25 years, but he is willing to give it up to support the incubator program. He also said he would be willing to lend his equipment to the new farmers.

The historic Darby House and Darby Store, which are empty in the Beallsville Historic District, would be used for administrative offices or housing once renovations are finished on both structures, Kines said.

Public amenities at the park include public horse trails and open riding pastures and a large outdoor riding ring and expanded parking facilities are planned, said Komes.

"We're putting all our seeds in a row so we can get this thing going," said Caroline Taylor, executive director of the Montgomery Countryside Alliance, an advocacy group dedicated to preserving farmland. "There's not a negative thing to say about the staff's choice of the Darby Hub. It's a perfect choice."

The proposed site is in the heart of the Ag Reserve, and has several good access roads for crop distribution, Taylor said.

Two locations in Sandy Spring and Clarksburg also were proposed by Department of Parks staff, but were not preferred by the planning board because of size, location and required site renovations.

The process of picking the three sites took six months, Hench said.

The incubator farm will be modeled after the Intervale Center in Burlington, Vt., which since its inception in 1988 has helped 16 farmers move from the incubator program to independent farming operations.

No funding is earmarked by either the County Executive or the Department of Parks for the incubator project, Kines said.

The next step will be drafting a budget proposal, a management plan, and getting recommendations from other agricultural programs at the county, state, and federal levels, before returning to the Planning Board in a month, Hench said. If the proposal is approved by the Planning Board it would then go to the Montgomery County Council for approval.

The cost to farmers participating in the incubator, and other program specifications, have not been determined, Hines said.

Outgoing Planning Board Chairman Royce Hanson said he would like to see the incubator farm operational by spring 2012.

"I think it's great," Hanson said. "I've been advocating for [the incubator] for several years."

Taylor is completing list of people interested in the incubator program and is helping identify funding sources.

"The fact that we already have growing lists screams to the need for the incubator," Taylor said.