"The first year of the farm to school pilot program showed great benefits for our farmers and growers as well as our students gaining access to fresh, locally grown foods in their school cafeterias," Assemblywoman Jenne said.
"A lot of time and effort was spent in year one setting a framework in place to connect our farmers and growers with local school districts. There was a learning curve and important connections were made. We should now be able to build on the successes we saw in the first year of this program and continue to build on that work in year two," she added.
The pilot is being administered by the Adirondack North Country Association. A recent report from ANCA noted 16 schools in Jefferson and St. Lawrence County had spent just over $75,000 from the pilot program funds by Dec, 31, 2016.
The schools participating in Drive for 25 pilot program spent $57,811.93 on foods grown in the region and state. These districts spent an additional $18,060.47 in the local economy on local food related expenses.
Local food purchases were made by 94 percent of school participants through three distributors, and 75 percent of the schools also purchased directly from 15 farmers.
Indoor grow racks have been purchased by 19 percent of the schools participating in the program. Assemblywoman Jenne said those grow racks have fueled increased student interest in the growing process and created excitement about the access to local grown on the school grounds.
She said the $300,000 for the pilot program is part of over a $1 million included in the budget for farm to school initiatives around the state that will help schools purchase more food from local farmers and expand access to healthy local food for students.
Assemblywoman Jenne, a member of the state Assembly's Agriculture Committee and chair of the state Assembly's Task Force on Food, Farm and Nutrition Policy, said she will continue to advocate for additional funding in future state budgets so the program can expand into other areas of the North Country.
She said the final budget passed by the state Assembly restored and increased funding for a number of agriculture-related programs that are important to farmers in the North Country and around the state.
They include:
• Nearly $9.3 million for Ag Child Care, an increase of $1 million;
• $5.4 million for the Cornell Diagnostics Lab, an increase of $1 million;
• $1.9 million for the Farm Viability Institute, an increase of $1.5 million;
• Over $1 million for the Wine and Grape Foundation, an increase of $307,000;
• $750,000 for the New York State Apple Growers Association, an increase of $544,000 over the governor’s budget;
• $800,000 for the FarmNet program to help family farms transition to a new generation, an increase of $416,000 over the governor’s budget;
• $610,000 for the Cornell Rabies program, a $560,000 increase over the governor’s budget;
• $500,000 for local fairs, an increase of $160,000;
• $250,000 for Tractor Rollover Protection;
• $215,000 for Maple Producers; and
• $115,000 for Cornell Veterans to Farms.
The final budget adopted by the state Assembly also restores $5 million for capital improvements to local fairgrounds; establishes a $5 million capital fund to assist animal shelters, many of which are overcrowded, dependent on volunteers and struggling financially; lifts the cap on the number of state-approved hemp farms in the state, allowing this emerging industry to grow to its full potential; and provides a 25 percent tax credit on qualified food donations that farms make to food banks, up to $5,000 per year.
Assemblywoman Jenne said it was critical for the assembly and senate to work to restore that funding since the executive budget had chopped funding for the North Country Farm to School program, $200,000 from the North Country Agriculture Studies Academy offered through St. Lawrence-Lewis BOCES, $25,000 from the North Country Low Cost Rabies Vaccine Program and reduced funding for the NY Farm Viability Institute from $1.9M to $400K and the Maple Producers Association from $215,000 to $0.
"We worked with our partners in the state Senate during the budget process to have funding for these valuable programs restored in the final state budget. It is important we continue to provide our agriculture industry in this state with the resources they need to face the challenges facing our farmers and to diversify their operations," she noted.
"The programs that we have restored funding to do valuable work in generating important research to help our farmers fight bugs and invasives that attack their crops and do work that assists our farmers diversify their field crops and improve the health of their livestock," the assemblywoman pointed out.
She said she will continue to fight to have increased funding directed to agriculture in the coming months and advocate for the state to establish a quality premium payment for farmers linked to reductions over a three-year period in somatic cell counts in fluid milk. She said the payments would drive the state's farmers to reach for the highest global quality standards and provide incentives when milk prices are low.
"The state can also play an important role in ramping up our effort to expand the value-added agricultural processing sector. I also hope we can work within the framework of our existing economic development programs to support our agricultural sector on a regional basis," Assemblywoman Jenne added.