BY PAUL MITCHELL
North Country This Week

LISBON – Forty-four participants including elected officials, farmers and business representatives took part in a collaborative agricultural tour at three Lisbon locations on Aug. 18.

“The purpose of the tour was to inform agriculture stakeholders about major issues facing county farmers; to learn about the county’s agriculture supply chain; the emergence of renewable energy systems on farms; and to help identify solutions to achieve industry-wide success,” noted Dan Huntley, president of the St. Lawrence County Farm Bureau.

The tour’s first stop was Never Tire Farm, a wholesale horticulture greenhouse operation owned and managed by Megan and Ray Bowdish. Both Megan and Ray spoke about the business’ history; its products and markets; their current growing practices; labor challenges and business succession. The farm’s nine greenhouses produce 500,000 to 800,000 seed starts annually that are distributed to retail outlets throughout the region.

The tour’s second stop was Robert Zufall’s organic dairy farm and community solar project. Bob and his wife Linda are first-generation farmers who run an 85-cow organic dairy farm with their three sons. The milk from Zufall’s grass-fed cows is processed by Maple Hill Organic, a company based in Little Falls New York whose products are sold nationally. In addition to having their cows graze on nearby pasture, the Zufalls host a new 3.4 megawatt DC (2.5 MW AC) community solar array. The array is situated on approximately 20 acres of land, and its panels tilt throughout the day to follow the path of the sun. Green Street Power, the solar energy company that owns and manages the array, explained the array generates an average of 500,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year, which is enough power to meet the energy needs of 160 homes and businesses.

Within the fenced array, the Zufalls manage a herd of 60 sheep that graze the vegetation that grows underneath the panels. After touring the solar array, participants enjoyed an excellent lunch at Zufall’s farm that was catered by The Blue House restaurant from Madrid.

The third and final stop of the tour was Woodcrest Dairy, LLC, a large dairy operation that was established by the Cruikshank family 120 years ago. Today, Woodcrest Dairy, LLC is comprised of several dairy operations and totals 3,400 cows. Woodcrest’s management is building a new anaerobic digester that sources manure from its farm, and from a neighboring farm to produce natural gas. Once online, the digester will generate 300 million Btu of natural gas per day. Because the biodigester will operate 24-hours a day, 365 days of the year, it is projected to generate the equivalent of 32 million kilowatt hours of on demand power annually.

After visiting the two renewable energy sites, Huntley expressed his thoughts on farming issues.

“What jumped out to me is a two-acre manure digester occupies about 2 acres of land compared to the 20-acre Zufall solar array, and yet it produces 64 times more energy. A mathematical per acre comparison is 20 acres at Zufalls to 1280 acres at Woodcrest if solar,” Huntley stated, noting that biodigesters are directly integrated into the operations of the dairy farm because they source energy from cow manure.

“The efficiency of land use between these two power sources is obvious,” said Huntley, who also sits on the St. Lawrence County Planning Board. “Most solar arrays are situated on acres of valuable, productive agriculture land to generate variable amounts of electricity, because they can only produce power when the sun is shining.”

Solar arrays require large-scale batteries to balance the transmission of power to the grid, Huntley added.

“We have recently seen the failure of these batteries and the environmental and public safety issues they present to the host communities,” Huntley said. “I simply want to point out the differences between these sources of renewable energy and how they impact the #1 industry in St. Lawrence County and northern New York.”

“The most overlooked fact of siting solar arrays on tillable acreage is the economic impact to the agricultural industry and the local communities,” he continued. “The annual economic multiplier of tillable acreage in the county is on average $800 per acre per year. When solar arrays cover those acres, the local economic multiplier per year drops close to zero per acre per year.”

Since 2014, the county planning board has reviewed 43 solar array projects. If all of these arrays were built, they would produce more than 305 MW AC of power, and occupy more than 1,600 acres, according to Huntley.

According to the US Department of Agriculture’s 2017 Agricultural Census, the county’s 1,253 farms operate on 343,000 acres and annually generate more than $191 million for the local economy.

Also attending the tour was Bob Andrews, chair of the County Agricultural and Farmland Protection Board, and Chair of the Soil and Water Conservation District.

“I’d like to note the inter-agency cooperation that exists between these organizations and their shared commitment to keep agriculture viable in the county.” Andrews said.

The organizations include Cornell Cooperative Extension of St. Lawrence County, the St. Lawrence County Agricultural and Farmland Protection Board, the St. Lawrence County Farm Bureau, the St. Lawrence County Soil and Water Conservation District, the St. Lawrence County Industrial Development Agency, and agriculture consultants, lending agencies, and educators.

“Personally, I’d like to thank Cornell Cooperative Extension and the County Planning Office for organizing this collaborative event. This tour featured the agriculture industry I love; it allowed the industry to share some of the challenges it faces, and it highlighted the group approach that is critical to managing our industry forward,” remarked Huntley.