Panorama Farm – C-VILLE Weekly

In 2009, Dr. Latham Murray of Earlysville passed away at age 59 at his childhood home, Panorama Farms. His family decided to take care of the funeral themselves, building him a homemade coffin and burying him in their family cemetery. Without knowing it, they had given him a natural burial, free of toxic embalming chemicals, exotic wood caskets, concrete burial vaults, and other elements of traditional funerals known to harm the environment.

After performing more natural burials for their parents, Jean and James Murray, the next generation of Murrays now hopes to add a natural burial ground to their Albemarle farm, giving other members of the community the option to say good-bye to their loved ones in a greener way.

“This is a profoundly meaningful way to care for and respect the dead,” says Chris Murray. “This would be a wonderful thing for the community.”

During a green burial, the deceased are typically placed in a simple wicker or woven casket, or covered with cotton shroud or blanket, all of which are biodegradable and allow for natural decomposition. After they are lowered into the ground and buried under several feet of soil, their graves are marked with a flat stone marker or native plants, in lieu of concrete or plastic memorials. Some natural cemeteries even offer organic burial pods, which turn decaying bodies (or ashes) into trees.

“My parents were enthusiastic environmentalists. This is a way to maintain their legacy of environmental stewardship,” adds Murray, whose family has owned Panorama Farms for nearly 70 years.

According to the Green Burial Council, there are currently around 250 green cemeteries in the U.S., including three in Virginia. With the approval of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, Panorama Farms could become the first green cemetery in the Charlottesville area.

The 20-acre burial ground would also help raise revenue to sustain and preserve the family farm.

This is a profoundly meaningful way to care for and respect the dead.
Chris Murray

Natural burials have been the norm in Jewish and Muslim communities for thousands of years, and were common in the United States until the Civil War, when wealthy Northerners started paying for their deceased soldiers to be embalmed and shipped home. After he was assassinated in 1865, Abraham Lincoln was embalmed and paraded across the country, leading to the birth of the modern American funeral industry, reports the Smithsonian.

“We’re essentially going back to that principle in Judeo-Christian tradition, which is literally ‘dust to dust,’” explains Murray. “The current conventional funeral and burial practices, the body basically never turns to dust.”

Natural burials cut out dangerous embalming fluid—a known carcinogen. And they’re greener than cremation, which releases nearly 600 pounds of carbon dioxide into the air and can vaporize harmful metals from dental fillings or surgical implants. They also save money, costing an average of $2,000 to $3,000, compared to the average $9,000 traditional American funeral.

According to Murray, the board of supervisors has until March 2022 to rule on the special use permit application, but the family hopes to hear back by late summer.

“We love the idea—but it’s not a slam dunk until we actually get the special use permit,” says Murray.

Trump’s migrants: Winery seeks more foreign laborers

Trump Winery has applied for temporary visas for another 23 laborers, which it says it cannot find domestically. Earlier this year, it imported six workers to prune grapevines. Critics suggest that if the vineyard, owned by President Donald Trump progeny Eric Trump, paid a living wage, it might be able to hire American workers.

Approximately 75 percent of the winery’s 110 employees are Americans, according to general manager Kerry Woolard. And like 2,000 other farms across the country that use H-2A visas for seasonal agricultural workers, the winery uses the visa program when it cannot find domestic laborers, she says.

“We engage in extensive efforts to recruit enthusiastic, qualified and committed employees for all positions, including labor positions at the vineyard, and are committed to employing U.S. workers whenever possible,” writes Woolard in an e-mail.

She says the winery aggressively recruits workers online through indeed.com, Charlottesville area Craigslist and the U.S. Department of Labor’s iCert system, as well as through print ads in multiple states and word of mouth.

Trump Winery is not the only area vineyard to use the H-2A visa program. Horton, Early Mountain and Barboursville vineyards also find help that way.

And as C-VILLE reported in January, temporary workers aren’t cheap. The employers must provide round-trip transportation, housing, vehicles and weekly trips to Walmart, as well as pay Mas Labor in Lovingston, the largest H-2A employment agency in the country, according to its owner, Libby Whitley.

The laborers Trump Winery brought in to prune over the winter were paid $10.72 an hour, but the newest batch will get a bump to $11.27, according to the U.S. Department of Labor website.

Many other local wineries, such as Blenheim, Cardinal Point and King Family, do not use the visa program, and most of them did not respond to inquiries about how much they paid.

Bill Pelton, owner of Clay Hill Farm, says he pays his crew $14 an hour and is considering upping them to $15 because that’s considered a living wage. “I do feel strongly they should be paid a living wage,” he says. And he wants to retain his crew, which he describes as “reliable, competent,” and as bringing expertise from other places.

Matt Murray, who grew up on Panorama Farm, has worked for Pelton. “It is hard labor,” he says. “The nature of the work is, you have to bend over. It’s reaching, pulling, cutting with sharp clippers. I’ve cut myself.”

And then there are the bees that wake up as the sun comes up and are drawn to the grapes. “Getting stung once a day is not uncommon,” says Murray.

Labor, says Murray, is a “miniscule” cost in producing a bottle of wine. Employers should pay workers responsibly, “if nothing else to make sure there’s a crew for next year’s work,” he says.

Murray lambasts “the hypocrisy of a self-proclaimed billionaire proclaiming he can’t find people to work. If he was willing to pay $14 or $15 an hour, he wouldn’t need to import people. The visa program wouldn’t be necessary.”

Not everyone agrees that Americans would be willing to do farm labor, even at a higher wage.

According to Woolard, out of 3,500 H-2A visas issued in Virginia in 2016, only 160 American workers applied for those positions.