At New York Farm Day late last month in Washington, D.C., Sen. Hillary Clinton announced plans to help farmers sell produce and products directly to colleges throughout the state.
Now, the farmers want to school tourists on site.
In conjunction with Amtrak, the New York Department of Agriculture and Markets recently published an updated “New York by Rail Agritourism Guide,” highlighting farms throughout the state located relatively close to train stations.
The guide includes the first-ever Roundout Valley farm tour, featuring visits to Gill Corn Farms, Five Spring Farms, Davenport Farms, Farm & Granary, Stone Ridge Orchard, Rusty Plough Farm, Duchess Farm, Hasbrouk Farms, Country Flowers and Catskill Native Nursery.
Other local farms in the guide include:
Ӣ Barton Orchards in Poughquag;
Ӣ Hilltop Hanover Farm and Environmental Center in Yorktown Heights;
Ӣ Sprout Creek Farm in Poughkeepsie; and
Ӣ Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Pocantico Hills.
Under its Farm Fresh program, Dutchess County also publishes a list of more than 50 farms where visitors can pick apples and pumpkins, enjoy hayrides and other fall activities.
At last count, the southernmost six counties of the Hudson River valley were home to 2,100 farms, according to USDA, which in 2002 had 322,000 acres of land. Those farms generated $147 million in sales from crops or livestock, or $70,000 per farm on average.
The region”™s livestock population includes 82,000 chickens; 30,000 head of cattle; 4,000 sheep; and 1,000 pigs.
Just 34 farms had more than 1,000 acres; median farm size ranged from 23 acres in Westchester County, to 90 acres in Orange County.
The smallest farmers may have gotten a break in late September, after the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation temporarily to suspend a provision in the 2008 federal farm bill that would have stopped farmers from receiving commodity payments if they have fewer than 10 acres.
Even as farm aid legislation made its way through Congress, New York farmers enjoyed an 8.1 percent increase in the value of their land between 2007 and 2008, according to estimates published in August by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), well above the overall 1.6 percent increase in the Northeast.
Massachusetts had the most expensive farmland in the country this year at $12,200 an acre, followed by Rhode Island and Connecticut. For the first time in more than a dozen years, however, the property value of Connecticut”™s farms dropped this year (by 1.6 percent), one of only five states where that occurred in the continental United States.
The sharp increase in New York and nationally has come against a pronounced pause in commercial and residential real estate business. The USDA attributes the increase to a smorgasbord of factors, including strong commodity and livestock prices, favorable interest rates, and tax incentives and farm programs.
Last February, New York farmers gathered in Saratoga Springs to learn about advanced farmland preservation techniques, including the use of “community preservation” vehicles that raise funding through fees on real estate transactions. The community of Red Hook has such a fund in place, which had a balance of $240,000 after one year of operation.
Even as farmers work to bring tourists on site, a group in the Hudson Valley hit the road themselves last week on an American Farm Trust-sponsored tour to learn farmland protection and planning techniques. The bus tour traveled to eastern Long Island, which American Farm Trust says has implemented several pioneering strategies.
