Down on the farm
The notion of a farmer receiving food stamps may sound like a joke, but there is nothing funny about the difficulties facing area farmers, some of whom will apply for food stamps this winter. Hudson Valley agriculture suffered from a disastrously wet and cold growing season in 2009 that coupled with ongoing difficulties like low prices and farm policies that can entwine farmers like bindweed.
Despite the bad news from the fields, a leading farmer and advocate for agriculture said that on the governmental level, the region’s leadership from both parties is working well together to try and improve prospects for farmers.
But through 2009 at least, those efforts have not borne fruit.
“In 2009, my farm workers earned more than me,” said Chris Pawelski, of Pawelski’s Farm in Goshen, which grows onions and squash on about 105 acres of lush Black Dirt land in Orange County. He has been farming since 1983 and along with his wife Eve is a fixture in political circles for advocating on behalf of agriculture in the Hudson Valley. But despite their expertise and lush land the Pawelskis will apply for food stamps this winter due to huge crop losses from the ruinous wet weather of 2009, when more than a foot of rain fell in June, among other difficulties.
“It feels funny; it feels kind of bad,” said Pawelski, who said he wants people to know of their need for assistance. Fellow farmers, he said, need to know they can take advantage of a loosening of New York’s food stamp regulations so that, contrary to previous years, farmers are no longer subjected to an asset test, meaning they can now receive food stamps without selling off the equipment that makes their farm workable.
And ordinary citizens need a greater understanding of the difficulties facing agriculture, to support measures that make farming a worthwhile occupation. Pawelski said positive measures that will help area agriculture are being considered or enacted and deserve support and bad ideas are also being floated, that may be well intentioned, but which would harm farmers, farm workers and consumers.
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