Message from American Farmland Trust

Conference Track Focuses on Building Local Support
and Funding for Farmland Conservation

 

Since the 1980s, New York has lost nearly half a million acres of farmland to development, an area equivalent to 4,500 farms. Once farmland is paved over, it’s gone forever. We cannot get it back.

But, we can help the family farmers who remain -- caring for the land and growing our food.  

Please join us at the Harvesting Opportunities in New York 2015 conference, November 4th at the Empire State Plaza in Albany. Participants will discuss how farms benefit communities of all kinds -- urban, suburban and rural -- and will learn how to work with New York State and other partners to generate support for the permanent protection of our disappearing agricultural land.

Save Farms in Your Community workshops include:

• Farming in the City & the Country-- Land, Economics, & Public Benefits
• Eminent Domain: Strengthening Protections for Farmland in Your Community
• Growing Resources for Farmland Conservation Funding

To learn about our other conference tracks and details of the event, please visit our conference webpage. Register now to reserve your spot at this special event for New York agriculture.

Sincerely,

David Haight New York State Director American Farmland Trust *Please note this is not my original content

The Forest Is Good for your Health (article on BBC)

"A study conducted in 24 forests across Japan found that walking among trees lowered blood pressure, the pulse rate, and levels of the hormone cortisol, which is released in response to stress."

This is something I learned long ago. I didn't need a study to tell me this but, if this is what it takes to green up our cities/ towns and to better preserve our open space then I'm all for it.  Read about it here: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33368691

A message from a religious leader on our enviroment.

Below is an email I received from Saveourenvironment.org. I have to say that I like this Pope. I am not a religious person but, if your into organized religion you can't deny this guy is on to something. He recently has taken some very modern positions from tolerance for sexuality and now has taken a stance on climate change. I love it!  People who tend to listen to ever word the Pope says tend not to be so modern, so this could really help reach a group that otherwise would have ignored the issue(s). (And for the sake of the catholic church maybe help people feel less alienated from the church but that's not the point of this post) See below:

 

Recently, Pope Francis took a stand on climate change – calling it  "the greatest ecological threat we face." His encyclical “Praised Be: On the Care of the Common Home” is a milestone moment for the faith community, uniting voices across the globe in the call to protect our environment.

Join us in thanking Pope Francis for his leadership on climate change.

A papal encyclical is rare – and it’s one of the highest levels of a pope’s authority. By making climate action a pillar of his encyclical on ecology, Pope Francis wants everyone to know that acting on climate change is a moral priority for the faith community.

This encyclical underscores our moral obligation to address climate change and its impacts on communities around the globe. Taking steps to tackle climate change will help protect the environment for future generations.

Pope Francis understands the threat of climate change. He knows that we’re already seeing the impacts on our ecology and that now is the time to act. As a faith leader representing more than one billion people worldwide, his call for climate action is a big deal!

Add your name to say you stand with the Pope and people of faith who have pledged to address climate change.

Together, we can help protect our common home for future generations.

Kevin Curtis
Director, SaveOurEnvironment.org
info@saveourenvironment.org

Making New York a National Leader - From American Farmland Trust

Governor Cuomo Proposes Important Step to Making New York a National Leader in Growing Farm Economy and Ensuring Food Security

Last week, Governor Cuomo released his proposed 2015-16 State Budget.  The Governor’s 2015 Opportunity Agenda is big – literally – more than 550 pages and proposes in excess of $141 billion in state spending. In it, is big news for the state’s farm and food economy and every New Yorker that cares about their food and where it comes from.  Governor Cuomo has proposed to make the state’s largest investment ever in permanently protecting farmland - placing New York in the Top Five in America in state funding for a Farmland Protection Program.  Investing in New York’s Farm and Food Economy The connection between Governor Cuomo’s proposed capital investment in protecting farmland and New York’s economy is pretty simple.  New York is a farm state that is packed with 19 million eaters, and millions more people just beyond our borders.  For generations, New York’s economy has been tied with growing, processing, distributing and selling food and other farm products.  Farmers hit a record high with nearly $5.7 billion in sales of farm products in 2013.   READ MORE Ensuring Food Security for All of New York’s Eaters But, protecting farmland is good for more than just farmers and New York’s economy – it matters to all New Yorkers that are thinking about their food and food security.  Nationally, more than 90% of the fruit grown in the United States, 80% of our vegetables and 70% of our milk is produced in urban edge counties – places where farms are under pressure from real estate development. These threats to our food production are very real in New York where the equivalent of 4,500 farms have been lost to real estate development since the 1980s.  And, according to a Cornell University study, New York’s 7 million acres of land currently in farming can produce only enough food for 6 million people – 30% of the state’s population.   Record State Investment in Protecting Farmland Governor Cuomo’s budget proposal includes $14 million for New York’s Farmland Protection from the state’s Environmental Protection Fund as well as a special allocation of $20 million for permanently protecting farms in the Hudson Valley and $30 million for farms and agricultural economic development in the state’s Southern Tier.  Such state investment would put New York near the top of the nation in farmland conservation funding – along with Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. READ MORE

Will Congress make our work illegal?- Email from Food and Water Watch

New York's announcement in December to remain frack-free was a game-changer for the movement to protect our drinking water and other precious resources. We give thanks to people like you, because together, we can protect public health and our environment.

However, now our opponents will likely intensify their efforts to silence and discredit our concerns about fracking, and with help from anti-environment members of the new Congress, we can expect radical actions trying to strip away current protections. That's why we need you to send the message right way that we're not going to stand for industry favors.

This week, the new Republican-controlled Congress is rushing to push through the Keystone XL pipeline approval, and we can surely expect more attacks on science like we saw in November when the House passed a bill forbidding scientists from advising the Environmental Protection Agency on their own research.¹

Even worse, paid lobbyists and industry-backed politicians have launched very deliberate and coordinated attacks on groups and individuals that champion environmental protections.² ³ They call us extremists in an attempt to thwart our growing movement. But we're not environmentalists for the sake of the environment. We aim to protect our environment because it has a direct affect on our health. We cannot live without clean drinking water, and we cannot grow healthy food without a healthy ecosystem.

Email your members of Congress to tell them that you support environmental protections, and that it shouldn't be illegal to stand up for safe drinking water and a healthy food system.

Now that Republicans have control of the Senate, a key committee — the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee — will be chaired by James Inhofe (R-Okla.), a notorious climate change denier and an unabashed champion for the fossil fuel industry. It was under his lead last year that, not just one, but two reports were released targeting environmental groups and their funders in an attempt to silence groups working in the public interest. Will you tell your Members of Congress that they shouldn't be using taxpayer dollars to fund attacks on groups trying to protect our environment?

We're being attacked in an attempt to draw attention away from what matters most: our food, our water, our health and our communities. But we won't be silenced. Instead, we'll gather all the support we can to show media and influencers that these attacks lack credibility. Will you stand up for environmental protections for our food and water?

Thanks for all you do,

Wenonah Hauter
Executive Director
Food & Water Watch
act(at)fwwatch(dot)org