On a cold winter day last month, farming was the center of attention at New Paltz Town Hall, as state Commissioner of Agriculture and Markets Patrick Hooker announced five towns locally – two in Dutchess County and three in Ulster – will receive grants to help secure the future of farming hereabouts. In Dutchess, the towns of Clinton and NorthEast will each receive $25,000 in planning grants, part of some $372,000 in state largesse to help towns encourage and abet agriculture that Hooker announced at the event, Wednesday Feb. 27.
The grant money was particularly noteworthy because it was made directly to towns, as opposed to being provided to counties for farmland protection. “A good way to think of it is this gives towns an opportunity to be proactive,” said Jessica Chittenden, communications director for the state Department of Agriculture and Markets.
“For a town our size, $25,000 is a lot of money,” said Clinton Town Supervisor Jeff Burns, a lifelong resident of the town, which has a population of about 4,000 people “We really are thankful to get the funding.”
Burns said the town had about 30 beef and dairy farms when he was growing up and now only five horse and beef farms remain, totaling about 1,000 acres. “There are pressures because our prime farmlands are also the best land for development because its flat and it drains well, so the people who own it are under a lot of pressure.”
In a sense, he said, the apparent economic slowdown in the nation and the region is “an opportunity” to fashion a farm protection regimen. He said grant will not go to purchase, but to planning. Primarily the result of work by Norene Collier, head of the Clinton Conservation Advisory Committee, he said the money will be spent over two years to engage local farmers in discussion and endeavors to protect local farms. “We’ve lost a lot to development,” Burns said. “What is left, we would like to keep as farms.”
In Ulster County, three towns – New Paltz, Shawangunk and Marbletown – each won $25,000 grants of their own. Al Wegener, a New Paltz resident who is also a member of the Ulster County Agriculture and Farmland Protection Board, said the state is sending a message. “The state wants the towns to play a more active role in the whole (agricultural and farm preservation) process, trying to encourage a close relationship between officials and farmers so there is a better understanding there,” said Wegener.
“They call it farm protection programs, but that’s really not a good name for it. It really is a farm planning program, to help plan a good future for farming in these towns.” While there are no concrete rules on how the planning funding must be spent, Wegener said, “Money has to be spent to have farmers involved in planning their future. That’s No. 1.”
Keep protection coming
Lydia Reidy, head of the county-affiliated Cornell Cooperative Extension, said the new money is a part of an ongoing effort to preserve agriculture locally, which officially began when Ulster County adopted a farmland preservation plan in 1997. Now, she said, the county has used state funding to protect five key farms along the Rondout and state Route 209 corridor, and is expecting state funding this summer that will allow for an updated farm protection plan.
She said the combined value of the grants and the county’s new open space plan, along with the money expected this summer, “is kind of like a perfect opportunity to really take a good close look at our agriculture, its economic value to our communities and make some priorities for strengthening our farm economy.”
She said that while the dollars-and-cents economic value of agriculture locally “is hard to quantify” because of various multiplier effects, she said the value goes beyond mere money, into scenic splendor that enhances the quality of life and attracts tourists.
New Paltz Town Supervisor Toni Hokanson said the new state grant would go toward strengthening farm protection sections of the town comprehensive plan. She said the work would complement ongoing efforts by the town clean water and open space committee, which is already examining issues regarding which land should be protected in accordance with the open space protection bond that town voters approved last year. She said that: “We are expecting it’s not going to take very long” to do the planning work and said that meetings and events would be scheduled with an eye toward allowing busy farmers to participate in the process.
Asked about the value of such protection, Hokanson had a very practical answer. “With the rising cost of gasoline, any time we can get food grown locally, that is going to reduce the cost of it,” she said. Noting that small, community-supported agriculture farms are something of a staple in New Paltz where there are at least four such farms, she added: “A good portion of our population now gets food through CSAs, so it’s better, healthier food and we’re saving money because you cut out transportation costs and the middleman.”