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Proposed state budget includes 'record funding' for agriculture programs and businesses, senator says

Posted 4/6/16

New York state agriculture will get “record funding” under the 2016-2017 state budget, according to Sen. Patty Ritchie, R-Heuvelton. The spending blueprint, which is on Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s …

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Proposed state budget includes 'record funding' for agriculture programs and businesses, senator says

Posted

New York state agriculture will get “record funding” under the 2016-2017 state budget, according to Sen. Patty Ritchie, R-Heuvelton.

The spending blueprint, which is on Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s desk, would “avert millions of dollars in proposed cuts to farm programs and strengthening efforts to recruit the next generation of New York farms.”

The final state budget, enacted last week, restores more than $12 million in budget cuts to farm programs.

The budget also includes funding for a new Cornell-run “Vets-to-Farms” program to connect veterans and soldiers returning from war zones to pursue careers in agriculture. “The program envisions a series of farms across the state where veterans can receive hands-on training and experience in operating and owning a farm,” Ritchie said in a prepared statement.

The final budget also includes funding for a third round of “Beginning Farmer” grants. The $1 million grant program is open to farmers who are in business for less than 10 years, and provides help with purchase of land, building and supplies to help new farmers succeed.

She says other highlights of the state’s farm budget include:

• Restoration of proposed cuts to dozens of farm programs, which support marketing, education, prevention of animal and plant diseases, and research

• A new “farm wage credit” to help boost farmers’ bottom lines by helping them control labor costs

• What she describes as “record funding” for school-based Future Farmers of America programs

• What she describes as “record funding” for rabies prevention and treatment, following a rise in the number of reported cases of wildlife rabies, particularly in central and corthern New York

• Renewed funding to fight Eastern Equine Encephalitis, a mosquito-borne illness that can be fatal to horses, livestock and humans;

• Supplemental state funding for what she describes as “the highly successful” Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program, connecting 100,000 low-income seniors, including some in St. Lawrence County

• Renewed funding for student loan forgiveness for beginning farmers, and for business and transitional planning services available to retiring and new farmers through Cornell’s FarmNet

• Restored cuts to farmer-led research that Ritchie says “aims to reduce diseases and increase productivity and profits, through such organizations as the Farm Viability Institute and Northern New York Agricultural Development.”