New York state lawmakers heard testimony from emerging farmers and related experts Tuesday as they prepare to juggle long standing funding issues with the state\u2019s efforts to soften the overall blow of federal cuts from Washington.<\/p>\n
As members of the state Assembly look ahead to an especially challenging state budget, many of them are participating in fall committee hearings which are intended to fine tune their understanding of the needs facing various sectors heading into next year.<\/p>\n
Assemblymember Donna Lupardo told Spectrum News 1 that at least one thing is clear: the state\u2019s assistance programming for emerging farmers is far from meeting demand.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to make sure we\u2019re preparing these emerging farmers for these careers,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s completely oversubscribed. Last year they had $800,000 and they had $22 million worth of requests, which tells us there is a lot of interest in beginning farming.\u201d<\/p>\n
At a time when the average age of a farmer in New York state is in the late 50s, lawmakers spoke with emerging farmers and other experts whose suggestions and input ranged from additional funding for those programs, to concerns about electrification and land usage, and more.<\/p>\n
Specific suggestions included assistance programs in the writing of grant applications, a second look at the state\u2019s emissions reduction goals and how they relate to farming, and tax incentives to help emerging farmers gain access to land and resources.<\/p>\n
Allyson Jones-Brimmer, executive director of the Northeast Dairy Producers Association, stressed that finding ways to set farms up for future success and future ownership is key.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most successful way to enter the business is to transition a farm from one generation to the next,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She pointed out that one barrier to that could be the expiration of tax credits that make it easier for farmers to plan ahead and ensure that future success. She wants to see them renewed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are starting to run into the fact that a farm may not be able to successfully plan a project and implement that project in time to take advantage of the tax credits,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
As for the challenging nature of this budget season and the potential for cuts to programming \u2014 or at least more modest funding \u2014 Lupardo urged Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s office and the state Legislature to undertake a two-part strategy:<\/p>\n
\u201cDo no harm, we have to make sure that going into the next budget cycle we protect the programs that we have,\u201d she said. \u201cWhere we can add something new that will help with the emerging farmers we\u2019re going to have to, there are whole areas that need additional work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lupardo added that there is real urgency in meeting demand in part because there are projects like the new Chiobani processing plant in Rome that are relying on these farmers to produce.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York state lawmakers heard testimony from emerging farmers and related experts Tuesday as they prepare to juggle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[8253,109,3478,116,113,288,256,257,199,295,9,24,55,54,49,12,56,112,87,3476,27,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-20613","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-app-agriculture","9":"tag-app-local-state-politics","10":"tag-app-local-business","11":"tag-app-ny-state-of-politics","12":"tag-buffalo","13":"tag-business","14":"tag-capital-region","15":"tag-central-ny","16":"tag-hudson-valley","17":"tag-jack-arpey","18":"tag-new-york","19":"tag-new-york-city","20":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","21":"tag-new-york-city-news","22":"tag-new-york-state","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-ny","25":"tag-ny-state-of-politics","26":"tag-politics","27":"tag-state-assembly","28":"tag-top-stories","29":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}