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They’re about halfway through the process. That’s how Cumberland County Administrator Derek Stamey explained the current status of the county’s long-term economic development plan when asked about it last week. Stamey was speaking at the Tuesday, May 20 meeting of Cumberland’s economic development authority (EDA) and gave an update on both the timeline and the focus of the county’s plan. 

Back in March, Cumberland started working with Summit Design and Engineering on the long-term project, with the goal of putting together a map of sorts, a project that will detail how the county can best help existing companies and ways of attracting new ones. More specifically, the goal is to look at logistics, transportation, processing and identifying gaps of service, places where Cumberland could recruit new businesses to fill the void. Basically, what makes sense in Cumberland County? Beyond farms, what about production? Marketing? What other areas of agriculture make sense to recruit to specific areas of the county? Or possibly there are some already here. What’s the best way to help them grow and develop? 

Cumberland supervisors have ordered the EDA to focus on companies and concepts that keep the county rural, rather than try and turn it urban. They were tasked with focusing on ways to spur economic development in agriculture. 

“We want to make sure that it’s useful,” Stamey told the EDA. “(The plan) needs to be a tool in the toolkit for anybody who wants to start or expand or improve an existing business within the county.”  

Originally, part of the focus had also been to find ways of recruiting grocery stores. But with the news back in March of a grocery store going up at 1481 Anderson Highway and then this month of an application for a Dollar General Market, Summit decided they needed to look less at grocery stores and more at building up agriculture as an economic driver. 

What’s the focus for Cumberland County? 

To date, Summit has met with multiple groups, conducted interviews, asked questions and pulled data. They’ve talked about agriculture with the American Farmland Trust, the Cooperative Extension Office, the local Commonwealth Regional Council and the Virginia Department of Agriculture, among others. To date, they’ve narrowed down to a handful of topics that seem to fit Cumberland. 

As of May 2025, there are 397 operations identified as “producers” in Cumberland County. Out of that number 232 are farms and 94% of those are family owned. So how can those producers work together? What are some ways teaming up could both save money and generate revenue? 

When Tyson closed its plant in Glen Allen in 2023, that hurt a lot of Cumberland farmers, EDA members said. And while a Poultry Co-Op has launched since then, it’s not a total replacement. Broiler chickens are raised specifically for meat and that’s what the plant processed. This operation is different in that it’s focusing on eggs instead. The farmers collect eggs from their chickens, then deliver them to the Co-Op. In turn, the Co-Op sells the eggs to its contracted partner. Could this be done with other products like beef cattle or produce? Maybe the county even looks at building a regional operation for some of these things, connecting producers with buyers across the region. But before any of that can happen, first you need an idea of how these structured collaborations could work. And that’s what Summit is trying to answer.
“Everyone is off working on their own,” Stamey said. “But if we can get people working together, it’s gonna benefit everybody.” 

Beyond partnerships, the Summit group is also looking at agritourism. The traditional options are things like corn mazes, wine tours, cheese-making classes, or anything that gives people from other areas a reason to come to one of Cumberland’s farms and experience different farming concepts. Some things like corn mazes can get extremely popular on social media and attract customers from a wide area, far beyond this region. 

Diversification, new technologies

The third area of focus involves coming up with ways to diversify the types of items being produced in Cumberland. Some farms and producers can make more money by growing, producing or otherwise zooming in on a specialty item. For example, in neighboring Buckingham County, rather than just beef cattle, some ranches focus on wagyu beef, a specialized brand with an international market. Maybe the same could happen in Cumberland, with beef, or cheese or a number of different agricultural products. 

Summit has also been asked to look at new technologies. Are there other ways of doing things that would make farming or agriculture in general more cost effective for some Cumberland producers? And that stretches beyond agriculture to forestry and wood processing as well. Summit has been asked to look at ways of developing and marketing the forestry operations in the county as a way of building and diversifying the economic portfolio. One of the challenges with that involves the Virginia Department of Forestry. Despite having an estimated 14,400 acres of state forest in Cumberland, the group doesn’t really respond to county questions or hasn’t in the past. Summit has been asked to look at ways to address that. 

And finally, Cumberland is made up of three main communities, the area around the Courthouse, Cartersville and the Farmville area of Cumberland. And the three areas don’t always communicate well with each other. In order to market and build any economic development, what’s the best way to improve communication? 

What happens next? 

Summit will continue collecting data and developing their first draft of an economic plan this summer. The group also wants to take a look at other rural counties in Virginia and across the U.S., to see if there are any practices that could be adopted here. Once Summit is finished with the first draft, they’ll come back with recommendations that the EDA and the new business task force will discuss. Stamey cautioned everyone that no one thing will solve the county’s challenges but having a solid “how-to” guide could help. 

“There’s no silver bullet that will fix everything,” Stamey told the EDA. “(But) at the end of the day, I hope to have a marketable plan we can follow.” 

BRIAN CARLTON is the regional editor for the Farmville Herald and its sister papers. He can be reached at brian.carlton@farmvilleherald.com.