DiNapoli: Agriculture Big Business in New York

By CnAgri2012-09-04 20:47:03 Print

Orange County is one of the state's top producers of vegetables. Ulster County is second in apple production in the state. The Mid-Hudson has 39 wineries. Those are all statistics in a report on the impact of agriculture on the state's economy, conducted by State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

New York Farm Bureau regional representative Marilyn Howard said more and more people in the region are shopping for locally grown fruits and produce at farm markets.

"Even the grocery stores are starting to buy local things," she said, noting Adam's Fairacre Farms offers a locally grown food section. Also, on Route 209 in Ulster County, the farmers have formed the Rondout Valley Growers, to offer their products collectively, rather than compete against one another, Howard said.

To get the word out to the public about Hudson Valley agriculture, Howard said the Farm Bureau has had booths at the county fairs in the region.

DiNapoli's analysis found New York's 36,300 farms were among the tops in the nation in producing a variety of commodities, pumping out more sour cream and cottage cheese than any other state and ranking second in apple production that year.

Dairy farmers reported the largest portion of the agricultural sales, accounting for about $2.2 billion of the total, according to the report. It ranked New York as the fourth-largest milk producing state in the country.

"While farming in New York is mainly a small, family business, its economic impact is widespread," DiNapoli said in a statement. "Farming supports thousands of New Yorkers in a variety of industries and services, such as food processing, trucking and tourism."

DiNapoli's report was issued in advance of his visit to The Great New York State Fair in suburban Syracuse, which has traditionally been used to showcase the state's large agriculture industry.

The analysis also cited a 2007 farm census performed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which found the nine-county Finger Lakes region led the way in farm sales that year, producing 30 percent of the state's total. The region includes Monroe, Genesee, Livingston, Ontario, Orleans, Seneca, Wayne, Wyoming and Yates counties.

Much of the production came from the region's wine industry. The Finger Lakes region has 95 wineries, according to DiNapoli's report. The state's wine production ranked second in the nation to California, while its grape production ranked third in 2010.

In 2010, five of the counties in the Finger Lakes region -- Livingston, Wayne, Ontario, Wyoming and Genesee -- had $150 million each in sales.

"The report solidifies what we have known all along -- that New York agriculture is an important part of the upstate economy," said Steve Ammerman, a spokesman for the New York Farm Bureau. "It drives billions of dollars in business, and it's important that the state at every level is recognizing that."

The Comptroller's Office report also touted the state's growing yogurt industry, which produced 553.7 million pounds of the dairy product in 2011. That's a 140 percent increase since 2008, the report found.

The increase in yogurt production -- spurred by companies like Chenango County-based Chobani -- has led to a higher demand for milk, which led Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration earlier this month to propose relaxing a threshold for small dairy farmers.

The state's Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation permitting system, which requires farmers to hire a certified planner to develop and implement a plan to deal with waste runoff, currently kicks in when a dairy farm has 200 or more cows. Cuomo has proposed increasing that limit to 300.

While the plan has been praised by dairy farmers, environmentalists have expressed concern, citing the potential for pollution from increased farm runoff.