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