agriculture

Drive from Bergen to Batavia, southwest on Route 33, and just a mile or so from the Route 237 intersection, you will see a big red barn with "Oderkirk" in hand-painted big white letters on one end.

We've all seen it.

And this time of year, we've all noticed the sunflowers saturating the north side of the property, too.

The free sunflowers, it turns out, are just a ploy to get you to stop and buy vegetables from Richard Oderkirk.

The 69-year-old is a fifth generation farmer to operate the Oderkirk spread since 1877. But he's retired now and growing vegetables is both a hobby and a way to supplement his income.

"They're self-seeded," Oderkirk said about the sunflowers. "I try to exterminate a few more of them each year. They provide a lot of shade for my squash plants -- too much shade."

It's the winter squash that Oderkirk really hopes to sell each year -- it will be ready in a few more weeks, and when it is, even the cucumbers and tomatoes will be given away, so more people will stop and buy the squash.

And people do stop. Often with cameras in hand.

"I enjoy seeing people like the sunflowers," Oderkirk said. "I had an art student from GCC here 10 days ago taking pictures, and two girls yesterday. I'm happy seeing that."

The sixth and seventh generation of the Oderkirk family now live on the property. Once a dairy farm of 280 acres, it's now the 2.5-acre residence of Mary Thomas, her husband and daughter.

Asked what she thought of so many people driving by and admiring her property, Thomas said, "I’m surprised to hear somebody say that. I guess I didn’t think of the place like that. I see people stop to take pictures of the sunflowers. That’s nice. I get tickled when Dad gives them away for free."

Knowing that daughter Mary enjoys the sunflowers, Dad planted a small variety  -- the plants closer to the road are HUGE -- on the far side of the barn, and if she squints between barn structures, Mary can see from her kitchen window.

Good naturally, she turned to her dad while we were taking and said, "They aggravate you because they’re not produce, but I love them because they add beauty. Everybody likes them, Dad."

Everybody does, even Richard, even if he doesn't always admit it.

More photos after the jump:

 

We received this news release today from Dean Norton, president of the New York Farm Bureau.

Sen. Michael Ranzenhofer last week cast a vote in favor of our local family farmers. He voted to defeat the Omnibus Farmworker Labor bill that threatened to devastate agriculture as we know it here in Upstate New York.

In turn, the bill would have had an equal impact on the overall local economy. It would have dramatically increased our costs and made it impossible for us to keep producing food in this area.

Sen. Ranzenhofer recognized that Albany should be coming up with ways to help agriculture, not hinder it. Like so many times before, Sen. Ranzenhofer cast a vote in favor of our local farmers and the rural economy.

New York Farm Bureau is grateful for the senator's leadership and looks forward to the continued support of our local farmers.

Here's a news release sent today from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.

As Congress begins debate over the next Farm Bill, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand today announced that she will hold listening sessions around the state over the next several months to discuss new efforts to help New York farmers and farming communities.

(Times, dates and places have not yet been announced.)

As the first New Yorker to serve on the Senate Agriculture Committee in nearly 40 years, Gillibrand plans to focus on key areas of the Farm Bill that will have major influence on New York.

These area include access to financing, new market opportunities, assistance for specialty crops, and investments in renewable energy. From dairy farms, black dirt farms, and apple orchards to vineyards, artisanal cheeses, and other specialty crops, New York farmers and communities will have a lot to gain in the next Farm Bill.

“New York is home to the hardest working farm families and the finest locally grown produce in the world, but outdated regulations and a bad economy are hurting our farmers and farming communities across the state,” Senator Gillibrand said.

“We need to make sure the next Farm Bill is a good deal for New York. I plan to take the next several months to listen to farmers and businesses in every corner of the state and discuss my ideas on how to help farmers survive and prosper in the new economy.”

She will begin the listening sessions this month in Western New York, the Finger Lakes region and the Hudson Valley.

More than 35,000 farms stretch across 7.1 million acres statewide -- one-fourth of the state -- generating nearly $4.5 billion for New York’s economy.

Here are some notable statistics:

• Western New York is home to nearly 6,500 farms stretching across over 1 million acres and generating over $710 million for the economy.
• The Rochester/Finger Lakes Region is home to more than 6,000 farms stretching across nearly 1.5 million acres and generating over $1 billion for the economy.
• Central New York is home to more than 6,000 farms stretching across over 1 million acres and generating nearly $736 million for the economy.
• The Southern Tier is home to more than 5,000 farms stretching across over 1 million acres and generating over $372 million for the economy.
• The Capital Region is home to nearly 5,000 farms stretching across nearly 850,000 acres and generating over $430 million for the economy.
• The North Country is home to more than 4,000 farms stretching across over 1 million acres and generating more than $1 million for the economy.
• The Hudson Valley is home to more than 2,000 farms stretching nearly 135,000 acres and generating over $120 million for the economy.
• Long Island is home to over 640 farms stretching across over 35,000 acres and generating nearly $260 million for the economy.

Issues to be Addressed in Listening Sessions

Providing Access to Capital

Like all small businesses, family farms are struggling to secure access to the financing they need to grow or, in many cases, survive in this difficult economy. Gillibrand plans to strengthen the Business and Industry Guaranteed Loan Program to help New York farmers develop value-added products.

She also plans to bolster the Farm Services Agency (FSA) loan program to give farmers the resources they need to purchase land, livestock, equipment, feed, seed and other supplies. The senator recently helped secure an additional $39 million for FSA operating loans to help give New York farms the capital they need.

Additionally, Gillibrand will fight to exempt New York State from the USDA’s 10,000 population criteria – the maximum population to qualify for USDA water and wastewater funding. Many parts of New York would be ineligible for funding under the new USDA guidelines since many New York towns include villages and other municipalities, putting a town’s population over the 10,000 threshold.

Red Hook, Arcardia, Kirkland, Utica, Cortlandville, Herkimer, Waddington, Massena, Alden, Sullivan, Wawarsing, Kingsbury, Plattsburgh, Lansing, Lysander, Fallsburg, Lowville, LeRay and Moreau are already threatened from being denied access to these resources.

Addressing the Dairy Crisis

Due to outdated dairy-pricing regulations, dairy farmers pay more to produce their products than they make from selling them. Senator Gillibrand has introduced legislation that would double the amount of money farmers get from the MILC program, retroactive to the low point of the crisis in March of 2009.

While raising the MILC payment rate to 90 percent will not completely make up the gap between cost of production and market rates, it will certainly help prevent more New York farms from going under.

Senator Gillibrand also introduced legislation to index the MILC rate to inflation. The MILC program payments were originally designed to help dairy farmers in their time of need, but funding levels have remained stagnant.

In the next Farm Bill, Senator Gillibrand intends to work with New York farmers to make these improvements and overhaul the milk-pricing system and secure a fair price for producers.

Additionally, she will work to make the opaque pricing system of the dairy market more transparent. Senator Gillibrand is cosponsoring the Mandatory Price Reporting Act to reauthorize the electronic price reporting of dairy prices -- helping to increase transparency -- and change price reporting from weekly to monthly.

Senator Gillibrand has also introduced legislation to make Cold Storage Inventory Reporting to the National Agriculture Statistics Service mandatory, and give the USDA the authority to audit the survey. Experts agree that reducing the influence of the thinly traded Chicago Mercantile Exchange is the best way to increase market transparency.

Expanding New Markets

Senator Gillibrand intends to expand the Market Access Program (MAP) to enable our farmers to sell more New York products worldwide. The MAP program provides funding for the creation, expansion and maintenance of foreign markets for U.S. agricultural products.

Gillibrand is also planning to introduce an infrastructure provision in the Business and Industry Guaranteed Loan Program to help farmers reach new markets.

Additionally, she will work to secure more federal funding to promote the USDA’s Fresh Fruit and Vegetable program to give New York farms more opportunities to supply schools with fresh, locally grown products.

Targeted Assistance to Specialty Crop Farmers

Specialty crop farmers stand to gain tremendous benefit from the conservation programs in the Farm Bill. Senator Gillibrand intends to bolster: the Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program (FRPP); the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP); and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP).

Gillibrand will also introduce a new program -- called the Conservation on Muck Soils (COMS) -- to provide additional assistance to New York’s specialty crop farmers.

Investing in New Sources of Clean, Renewable, New York Energy

New York’s agriculture industry is rich with opportunity to help lead America to a clean energy economy that can create good-paying jobs and rebuild our economy, strengthen our national security and cut pollution.

Senator Gillibrand plans to work for more investments in the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) that provides loans and grants for farmers and small rural businesses that build renewable energy systems, such as anaerobic digesters.

She also intends to push for greater investments in the Rural Energy Self Sufficiency Initiative, which assists with installation of integrated renewable energy systems in rural communities that make use of wind, solar, hydropower, geothermal and biomass sources.

Additionally, Senator Gillibrand plans to work to secure more investments in the Biomass Research and Development Program and the Biomass Crop Assistant Program to harness more of our state’s potential to convert biomass and agricultural waste into renewable energy.

The Alexander Steam Show will have another classic piece of farm equipment to display this year. The Hegge family, which has farmed on Dodgeson Road since about 1930, is donating a 1950s era combine built by Massey-Harris.

Above, Matt Meyers operates a Massy-Harris tractor owned by his father, Vinnie Meyers, as the combine is turned over for the first time since sometime in the 1970s.

Rob Hegge is making the donation, but his son Lee was on hand Saturday to help the Meyers get the combine out of storage.

I stopped on Dodgeson Road to take a picture of the Hegge barn and the group noticed me out by the road and we talked a bit, so I went over and introduced myself, which is how I came across these two classic, Batavia-built, examples grand old farm equipment.

Lee let me wander around a bit and take a few more pictures.

I spotted the possibility of this hay field with its crop cut and rolled a few days ago, but wanted to go out on a clear morning for a picture. I did that this morning. The location is on Clinton Street Road near Griswold.

The Genesee County Fair opened Tuesday.

All of the typical county fair goodness is available this year -- carnival rides, food, games, big farm equipment, a chance to get up close to farm animals, livestock competitions, crafts and contests, music, dancing and live entertainment.

There will be a meat auction on Thursday.

The fair runs through Saturday.

More photos after the jump.

 

 

We're starting farmers market and road-side stand season, so good fresh fruits and vegetables will be bountiful (can't wait for the sweet corn to arrive). Yesterday, the farmers market at Batavia Downs opened. Tomorrow, the downtown public market at Center and Ellicott will open.

Sandra Cassandra sells a bag of cherries to David Hiscutt.

At the intersection of Putnam and East roads, crews were harvesting hay this afternoon.

Here's a press release from the New York Farm Bureau:

The New York Farm Bureau today announced a fight-back campaign against proposed Department of Environmental Conservation regulations that aim to restrict the use of outdoor wood boilers in rural New York.

"This is another attempt by Albany bureaucrats to single out the rural residents of New York," said Dean Norton, president of New York Farm Bureau. "DEC's decision on restricting the use of outdoor wood boilers will literally impact thousands of farmers and rural landowners across the state."

"Rural New Yorkers have been heating their homes with wood since the first Dutch settlers came up the Hudson," Norton said. "We all know it gets extremely cold in New York and DEC's actions will just drive residents back to using costly oil heat -- leaving a much cleaner renewable resource unused."

The Farm Bureau will rally its 30,000 members to fight these proposed regulations and will be lobbying furiously in the halls of Albany.

Thousands of owners of outdoor wood boilers will be forced to retrofit costly smokestacks to meet new DEC height requirements, limit the use of their units for almost half of the year and ultimately prohibit the use of any outdoor wood boiler that does not meet new, strict DEC emissions requirements.

The proposed regulations will have significant financial implications for farm and rural homeowners that heat their houses, barns and greenhouses.

"DEC's proposal is an overly broad plan to address the relatively few complaints that they have received about air-quality impacts from outdoor wood boilers," said Jeff Williams, Farm Bureau's deputy director of Public Policy. "This regulation punishes thousands of honest people that own outdoor wood boilers, use their own wood from their property and operate their units responsibly."

New York State residents will be required to retrofit their current units and then take their outdoor wood boilers out of service before the end of the unit's useful life and lose a major investment that can cost upwards of $10,000.

The owners can make the decision to purchase either a new, more expensive, outdoor wood boiler or return to non-renewable, petroleum-based fuels or natural gas.

"It must be pointed out that DEC does not provide any financial reimbursement or incentives for the retrofitting of smokestacks or the purchase of a new, compliant outdoor wood boiler," Williams said. "It is like the government telling you that you have to switch out your farm truck for a hybrid-electric car, but you have to pay for it yourself. It doesn't make sense."

DEC is holding a series of public information sessions/hearings around the state this month on the proposal. Farmers and rural residents are encouraged to go to <www.nyfb.org> for the hearing schedule, talking points and to send an e-lobby letter opposing the regulations to DEC and your state legislators.

Written comments will also be accepted by DEC until July 2.

Sen. George Onorato, a Democrat from Queens, represents no farmers and probably no farm workers, but he has reintroduced legislation that New Yorker's farmers have spent close to two years fighting and thought they had defended.

The farm labor bill is now S.7787 and Watertown-area Democratic Senator Dean Aurbertine, who successfully lobbied Senate leadership to have the previous farm labor bill moved into his agriculture committee, where it died last month, said the new bill makes only cosmetic changes to the previously defeated legislation.

In a news release, Aubertine said:

“It’s disheartening that advocates for this legislation after suffering a defeat refuse to accept the fact that this bill went through an open process, was considered and defeated by a majority of senators. Up to now a majority of Senators who have voted on this bill, voted against this bill. The process was set up by the Senate to deal with these bills and the process worked. There really is no substantive change between this legislation and the legislation that went down to defeat.”

The bill allows farm workers to form unions, receive workers compensation and unemployment benefits and provides for 24-consecutive hours of off time each week and mandates an eight-hour work day.

Farmers say the provisions would drive up farm labor costs by hundreds of millions of dollars and put many of New York's farms out of business.

In honor of Mother's Day, New York Farm Bureau is saluting the growing ranks of women that have recently entered into farming. Here's a news release from the bureau:

Women farmers are among the fastest growing sectors in agriculture, according to recent state and federal statistics. The most recent agricultural census, done in 2007, revealed that women were the principal operators of 6,688 farms in New York on 592,787 acres of land.

"The trend of women joining this industry makes sense," said Julie Suarez, public policy director for Farm Bureau and mother of two. "Women farmers can work where they live, alongside their children. It's the ultimate family lifestyle.

"Women farmers are also producing something of value for the community at large -- good food. The occupation offers tremendous job satisfaction, although not always as financially lucrative as other businesses.

"There's always been a strong female partnership in our state's family farms, but the recent trend is for farmers' daughters, and innovative women seeking new careers, to start up their own farm operation or initiate a new endeavor on the home farm."

Women are running more farms and operating more land, and producing a greater value of agricultural products than ever before. When compared to all farms nationwide, those with female principal operators tend to be smaller both in terms of size and sales. However, women are more likely to own all of the farmland that they operate.

"There are a lot of state programs out there that seek to help minority- and women-owned businesses with start-up, micro-loans or state procurement opportunities," Suarez said. "But farmers don't often think about these programs because their availability is not usually publicized in rural areas in a field that's stereotypically dominated by men.

"The reality couldn't be further from the truth as farm families know that women have always played an equal role in the farm family and business. However, when women seek to develop their own farm operations there aren't many development tools geared toward meeting the needs of women opening up a farm business in a rural area.

"We hope that by highlighting this growing segment of agriculture, and saluting our female farmers, we can encourage greater awareness of the need for minority- and women-owned business programs to consider the great potential that exists for women in starting new farm operations."

From left, Dale Stein, Sen. Mike Ranzenhofer and Dean Norton.

Following the defeat of a farm labor bill in the Senate Agriculture Committee this week, New York Farm Bureau President Dean Norton said agriculture leaders are more than willing to sit down with farm labor advocates and discuss compromise legislation.

He said while proponents of the recently defeated bill said they agreed to compromise on changes, that isn't really how it worked.

"There was no compromise," Norton said. "They came in and said, ‘OK, we tweaked it a little bit. Take it or leave it.’ In my world, that’s not a compromise."

Now that the bill is dead, Norton said maybe the farm-labor advocates will realize they tried to take too big a bite out of the apple, and will be willing to sit down and really talk.

"I think with 2247B being defeated, perhaps we have the opportunity to go back and have that open dialogue," Norton said. "I hope the other side really takes the opportunity to do that."

Norton's remarks came at the end of a press conference with Sen. Mike Ranzenhofer to discuss the bill's defeat.

Ranzenhofer thanked Norton and Genesee County farmers, with dairyman Dale Stein at his side, for their efforts to help defeat the bill, which he said would have killed agriculture in New York.

Getting the bill out of the labor committee -- where he said it was just rubber-stamped -- and into the agriculture committee was key to giving the bill a fair hearing and have it publicly weighed on its merits.

The hearings, he said, brought in both opponents and proponents of the bill.

Ranzenhofer once again praised the work of Daily News staff writer Tom Rivers for his series on farm labor, which he said opened eyes in Albany to what farm labor is really like, and made it harder for bill supporters to spread misinformation about farm-labor practices.

Stein said the misinformation spread by bill supporters really made him unhappy.

"Where can you make $34,000 or $35,000 a year in Genesee County without a high school diploma, without a driver's license?" Stein asked rhetorically. "On a farm. You can’t do it anywhere else. They’re not telling the truth about what the farm workers are making. And that’s my real disagreement with them."

A key factor in getting the bill defeated, Ranzenhofer acknowledged, was the willingness of  Sen. Darrel Aubertine, a Democrat from the Watertown area, to buck his party and get the bill moved into the ag committee, which he chairs.

Aubertine is the first Democrat in 100 years to represent that area of New York in the Senate. His district still leans Republican, but based on comments from Ranzenhofer today (in response to a reporter's question), it doesn't sound like the GOP will cut Aubertine any slack in November's election.

Asked if Ranzenhofer would endorse Aubertine, Ranzenhofer said flatly, "No."

"At the end of the day," Ranzenhofer said, "when you vote for a budget, like he did last year, that increases taxes $8.5 billion, increases spending over $12 billion, I mean that to me is a non-starter. When you take a position like that, which continues to kill the whole economy in the State of New York, I mean, I didn’t vote that way. I don’t support that point of view and I can’t support senators who advocate for increasing taxes and increasing spending."

A bill that would have instituted new overtime rules, unemployment benefits and allowed farm workers to organize into collective-bargaining units died in the New York Senate's Agriculture Committee today.

On a 6-3 vote, the committee voted down the measure, known by opponents as the "Farm Death Bill."

Opponents said the bill would have increased costs for New York's farmers by $200 million per year.

"It would have killed agriculture in New York State, and that's the state's number one industry," said Sen. Mike Ranzenhofer, who sits on the committee and voted against the bill.

After passage in the Assembly last year, the bill was looking like it would make it to a floor vote in the Senate when Sen. Darrel J. Aubertine, a Democrat who chairs the agriculture committee, lobbied to have the bill reviewed by his committee before letting the full Senate vote on it.

In a statement today, Aubertine said:

"The committee came to its conclusion following a lengthy, open process which included participation from all sides of the issue. The committee worked diligently to cut through the rhetoric, and aggressively pursued the facts of this matter. Toward that end, the committee voted based on the merits of this bill and its impact on farm workers, farmers and consumers; not partisan attacks, half-truths, rhetoric or political polling."

Ranzenhofer said that articles by Batavia Daily News staff writer Tom Rivers, which he collected in a book, helped educate legislative leaders about farm labor and dispel a lot of misinformation being spread by supporters of the bill.

"Tom was  able to bring reality check to what some of the more sensational special interest people were saying," Ranzenhofer said.

Amish construction workers have been on the Cleveland family farm for the past two days re-roofing an old barn. The farm, off Cleveland Road in Pembroke, is now owned by John Cleveland and his wife, Melissa. The farm has been in the family since the 1830s, according to Mike Cleveland, assessor for the Town of Batavia. John and Melissa's daughter, who is 3, is the eigtht consecutive generation of Clevelands to live on the farm.

NOTE: This is an updated version of the story that corrects the implication from the Albany Times-Union story that the Batavia Kmart was involved, and the error in the TU story that warning letters were sent to the stores.

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Six grocery stores in New York -- including one in Batavia -- were notified by the state that some fish products the were selling were apparently overpriced.

The allegation is that the stores were selling seafood packed in ice, and the ice was being weighed so that consumers were paying not just for filets and shrimp, but ice as well.

The Batavia Tops was one of the six stores asked to remove products from its selves and either re-label the packaging or return it to the distributor, a company out of New Jersey, according to Jessica Ziehm, spokeswoman for the state Department of Agriculture and Markets.

Tops reportedly sold fish fillets packed in ice that was counted as part of the weight.

Press release available here.

Bigness is killing New York dairy farmers.

Big and ever-growing milk processors and retail chains are controlling the market and driving down the prices paid to farmers, but not passing on the cost savings to consumers.

That was the message of a meeting yesterday at GCC of dairy farmers and the Assistant U.S. Attorney General Christine A. Varney, who is in charge of the Antitrust Division.

From the Buffalo News:

"Our farmers are getting paid less and consumers are paying more," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer, who invited Varney to the meeting. "Someone's walking away with all the money."

Schumer said processors are making record profits at a time when farmers are on the brink of losing their family businesses. He wants the Justice Department to investigate anti-competitive practices in the dairy industry.

Consolidation among milk processors is one of the chief reasons prices paid to farmers has gone down, Varney was told. There are simply fewer outlets for farmers to sell their product to, meaning less competition, and without the competition it's easier for the buyer to set ever lower prices.

In some states, Dean Foods controls as much as 90 percent of the market, and about 70 percent in New York.

From the D&C: 

Bill Cook, who milks 1,800 cows near Aurora, Cayuga County, said he used to deal with five different milk buyers who were willing to pay a premium for the high-quality milk his cows produced. Premiums can mean the difference between just paying the bills and actually making a profit.

Meanwhile, Cook said none of those buyers is still operating because they went out of business or were consolidated into larger operations, such as Dean Foods, a giant among dairy processors. Cook had to borrow $500,000 to cover his losses last year.

The Buffalo News quoted a sixth-generation Wyoming County Farmer who used USDA figures to point out that the dairy farm share of retail dollars have dropped from 37 percent to 25 percent in the past three years.

Bigger and bigger retail chains were also blamed for downward prices on milk products.  Walmart's outsized pressure for lower and lower prices isn't helping farmers.

"Walmart's 'everyday low prices' applies constant downward pressure on all commodities, squeezing the supply chain while demanding more," said Ed Schoen of Shoe-Acres farm in Phelps, Ontario County. Pricing at Wegmans, on the other hand, is sensitive to the prices farmers are getting, he said.

Barbara Brown, a county legislator in Oswego County, said her district once had 26 dairy farms. Now it has three. She recently sold off her cows and closed her farm.

Varney offered the farmers hope.

"We will not let you down," she said, according to the Buffalo News. "We know the problem you're facing."

Sen. Schumer has called on the federal government to take several steps to help dairy farmers:

• Deal with the consolidation of milk processors and the lack of competition.
• A program called MILC provides aid to farmers when milk prices fall to a certain level. That target price needs to be raised.
• Raise MILC reimbursement from 45 percent of the price difference.
• Reform the milk marketing order system, which helps set commodity prices, used by the USDA. The current system doesn't adequately measure the cost of milk production in the Northeast.
• Return to a dairy compact system that helps New York farmers set prices.
• Pass a Milk Import Tariff act to ensure that milk producers and processors in other countries are playing by the same rules as the United States.