Locally grown produce found at Central New York supermarkets might be harder to find this summer as the federal government freezes agriculture funding and scrubs websites of critical climate information.
New York State’s agriculture industry is yet another sector of the economy facing uncertain times under harsh and arbitrary funding cuts. For example, the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York has nearly $700,000 in frozen funds that provide technical assistance and programming. Board president Wes Gillingham said it’s a travesty for the state’s more than 1,500 organic farmers trying to make improvements.
“I mean, there's multiple examples of that I've been hearing from farmers across the country," Gillingham said. "They actually went out and got a loan because they had a guarantee from the government for a partial repayment. Now they're facing not being able to pay back a loan or pay a contractor.”
Gillingham says the relatively small projects benefit more than just the farm.
“When a farmer gets a little bit of funding through the USDA to do a riparian buffer to protect their farm from extreme weather events that we're experiencing in extreme numbers nowadays, that not just protects the farm and makes their business more viable, but it actually protects the community that they're a part of. It helps with controlling flooding.”
Gillingham says funding freeze coupled with scrubbing climate change information from websites cuts at the heart of the support systems farmers rely on to survive, succeed, and grow the food we eat.
“It's definitely the silo that I function in, but having a good healthy food system across the country and access to food is one of the most important things that any society can do.”
The Northeast Organic Farming Association has joined forces with environmental groups in suing the USDA for unlawfully removing web pages focused on climate-smart farming, conservation programs, and federal loans. Additional legal action is likely.
