- January 15, 2025
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Imagine all 53,416 students in the Manatee County School District being offered Dakin Dairy milk in the cafeteria.
“I would love to see that,” said Garrett Dakin of Myakka City's Dakin Dairy. “Why not? Or we could end up like Alico.”
Alico Citrus has been around for over 125 years and is one of the largest orange growers in the country. The company has a grove in Arcadia and owns about 53,000 acres of land across eight counties.
Alico announced Jan. 6 that it’s shutting down its Florida operations because growing citrus is no longer economically viable in the state. News like that worries Dakin.
In 1957, there were 29 dairy farms in Manatee County. Now, the only three left are owned by Dakin and his three brothers: Jason, Grant and Ethan Dakin.
During a special strategy session held Jan. 7 at Manatee County’s administration building, newly elected District 1 Commissioner Carol Felts asked why any child in Manatee County should be drinking milk from someplace else when it's available right here.
Felts placed helping those in agriculture at the top of her priority list next to making the Future Area Development Boundary “mean something again.”
“Our county stands on three main economic issues: New construction, tourism and agriculture,” Felts said. “Agriculture has always been part of Manatee’s legacy, history, economics, everything.”
Felts said new construction and tourism are luxury items, whereas everyone has to eat.
“The next battles will not be fought with bullets; they’ll be fought with bread,” she said. “It’s something we’ve got to think about. Our defense is to have a healthy, self-sustaining population.”
Commissioner Jason Bearden offered incentives as a possibility.
“If the school district would purchase milk from Dakin Dairy, that could help them out a lot,” he said. “Maybe there’s a way we can (incentivize). I don’t know the answer to that, but that’s definitely something we need to talk about.”
Pushing agritourism was also discussed, and there’s an agricultural task force already in the works. Janyel Taylor, the operation manager at Ralph Taylor Nurseries, is taking the lead.
She hopes to have the task force assembled over the next six months because the county is revising its Comprehensive Plan, and agricultural stakeholders want equal input to developers.
“I think we get overlooked by development,” Taylor said. “Builders seem to get the meetings first. My goal is to have the task force be able to update (commissioners) on the state of our industry, as well.”
Taylor is also working with Commissioner Amanda Ballard on promoting National Agricultural Week in March with events that introduce the community to its local farmers.
A line, drawn north to south and known as the FDAB, was drawn in 1989. It's where access to Manatee County utilities end and is generally located east of Manatee's water treatment facility.
Since 2023, that line has been crossed with approvals for Schroeder-Manatee Ranch’s Taylor Ranch and Carlos Beruff’s East River Ranch. Changes were made in the Comprehensive Plan that allowed the exceptions.
“(Let's) return back to really making the FDAB mean something,” Felts said. “The FDAB means we cannot provide you with sewer and water past this line. The county cannot be responsible for it. We can’t afford it. We can’t do it.”
The approvals were made possible by a Comprehensive Plan amendment made in 2021. Policy 2.1.2.8 allows commissioners to approve projects east of the FDAB that are “contiguous,” meaning they can connect to utilities that already exist to the west.
The onus is on developers to extend the roads and utilities, but the county still has to maintain them afterward.
Commissioner George Kruse’s top priority for 2025 is to finalize the Comprehensive Plan, which has been in the works for two years. Within that, he wants Policy 2.1.2.8 removed, even though it is “subjective.”
“The fact that it’s in there doesn’t give anyone any rights to anything,” he said. “It just gives them the theoretical option to present it to us, but I don’t see any purpose in that. I’m not moving that line. That line is where it is. We have more than enough space to build west of it.”
In October 2023, staff said a Facility Investment Fee study would be complete in six months. It was the first required step for the then-board to consider moving the FDAB. The study evaluates the county’s costs of development east of the line.
Even though developers lay the pipes, the county still has to push water through them and the longer the lines, the higher the cost. In 2023, staff didn’t know what these things would cost.
Information Outreach Manager Bill Logan replied by email that the study was done but hasn't been presented to the commission yet.
Kruse was opposed to moving the line then, too. During the recent strategy meeting, he suggested looking at redevelopment where utilities and transit already exist instead of continually building east.
One issue with the rapid growth west of the FDAB is traffic, which was also addressed during the meeting.
“We’ve been getting our butts kicked in business left and right,” Bearden said. “We can fix it because people do make mistakes, and so I want to make sure that we have adequate roads that we can get from Point A to Point B.”
Bearden’s focus is on a north and south bound road that could cross the Manatee River. He said it wouldn’t be easy, but there are railroads the county could claim imminent domain on.
Additional priorities for commissioners in 2025 include fixing stormwater issues, attracting new employment opportunities and improving services for veterans.
