By Rhiannon Evans
The federal agricultural research facility in Beltsville is “such an important part of the rural economy,” said Charlotte Davis, executive director of the Rural Maryland Council — which is why she and others are concerned about its threatened closure.
The shutdown of the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, known as BARC, could disrupt Maryland’s largest commercial industry and add to the more than 31,000 federal jobs the state lost over the last year, state officials said…