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.
Pawelski noted that when he started helping run the family farm in 1983, a new Corvette sold for about $18,000 and the family was paid $6 for a 50-pound bag of onions grown on the farm. Today, a new Corvette costs about $60.000 but on average, each year the family still receives $6 for a 50-pound bag of onions.
“This is not just onions,” said Pawelski, saying that for a variety of foods there is a ruinous disconnect between prices paid to farmers and prices paid by consumers.
“Absolutely it’s a problem; we’re getting the same price or even less for our milk then we were paid 20 years ago,” said dairy farmer George Constable, of Echo Farms in South Salem. Currently the situation is “the worst ever,” Constable said, noting that for the standard “hundredweight” of milk, about 8.5 gallons, dairy farmers in the area received $11. “It costs us more than that to produce it,” he said.
On average, Pawelski said, farmers receive only about 20 cents on the dollar consumers spend for their produce in supermarkets. “Its not sustainable anymore,” said Pawelski. “Either we have to figure out a way to raise the cost of food or the farmer has to get more of the retail dollar.”
The problems arise from a variety of factors including increased production domestically and internationally. But overall, Pawelski said, the driving force is the ongoing consolidation of agriculture and food marketing nationally. He said collusion among large agribusiness interests appears to be a major part of the problem, so much so that the Department of Justice is holding hearings nationally in 2010 to examine whether action should be taken to ensure fair prices are paid to farmers by the large companies that collectively dominate the U.S. food retail economy.
When losses mount due to weather factors beyond a farmers control, crop insurance is supposed to ease their plight. Pawelski had federally subsidized crop insurance. But such insurance provides more benefits to insurance companies than to distressed farmers. Pawelski paid more than $9,000 for 70 percent coverage of his crop, while taxpayers kicked in $19,500. He was unable to harvest more than half his expected crop, a loss worth about $115,000. He received paperwork showing his farm is indemnified for roughly $6,700. His reinsurance partner in the public-private partnership will receive $22,700. Pawelski said other farms suffer from the same skewed system and said local political leaders have taken up the cause for reform, but so far without success in Congress.
Along with leveling the playing field for farmers, he said, the business of agriculture needs to be given its rightful attention as a key industry worthy of efforts by industrial development specialists. “In the past, when it has come to economic development agriculture has been treated like the ugly step-children, hidden and not addressed,” said Pawelski. He noted that recently the situation has improved, citing the Hudson Valley Agribusiness Development Corp.
Farmers could use economic development assistance to help pay for costs associated with switching from mono-cropping, that is harvesting one product such as onions, to growing a variety of produce and fruit and to setting up farm stands and transportation options to get their crops to urban areas. Economic development assistance could also help farmers explore and pay for better pest management programs, that reduce the need for ’cides without hurting yield.
Meanwhile locally, just as society will fix infrastructure to ensure a factory can operate efficiently he said, more attention must be paid to dealing with the periodic but devastating floods happening more frequently in the Wallkill River. While flooding is a natural part of the ecosystem, he said, the situation in the Wallkill is not natural, with human activity creating artificially high storm water and melt-off floods, since paved acreage in the watershed no longer absorbs flow that now rushes to the river and overflows its banks. Additionally, he said, the river itself contains debris from past floods that create log jams fostering even worse flooding now and in the future.
The legal and regulatory framework encompassing farmers needs to be improved, said Pawelski, citing the federal programs for guest workers to work on farms. And, he said, New York state should not pass the omnibus “Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act,” which would mandate overtime for farm workers as well as a day of rest, unemployment insurance and the right to unionize. Pawelski said the prime sponsors in the state Legislature are from New York City and they know nothing about agriculture. The notion of paying overtime for example, he said, makes no sense in an industry where planting and harvesting are particularly long and labor intensive periods, while mid-summer tending of crops is comparatively slow.
“I wonder if they (bill sponsors) have ever set foot on a farm,” said Pawelski. “It is absurd; overtime doesn’t make sense in agriculture. Your work schedule is dictated by weather and the seasons, factors that you can’t control. To put an arbitrary rule in place comparable to a factory makes no sense.”
Still, Pawelski said he is encouraged by the efforts state and national political leaders are making on behalf of farmers in the Hudson Valley. He said the governor’s office and Congressional representatives have in a sense channeled an earlier era when politics were put aside for constituent service. “Thankfully we have good elected officials on the federal and state level here who understand what we are facing,” said Pawelski. “And they work well across the aisles.”
0 Comments