Agriculture has long been a vital part of the economy in the Hudson Valley.
The Hudson Valley Agri-Business Development Corp. (HVADC) aims to keep it that way.
The group, which began operating at the beginning of this year, is still in its infancy stage, but is focused on encouraging agricultural entrepreneurship in the valley.
“Agriculture is good business that strengthens the local economies,” said Todd Erling, executive director of the HVADC.
Erling, who also serves as director of the Columbia-Hudson Partnership in Columbia County, described the HVADC as “an incubator without walls.”
At this stage, the group”™s primary function is to help new agricultural ventures apply for grant funding, and to develop business and marketing plans.
“We”™re in the process right now of putting together finance packages, and developing a capital loan pool,” said Erling.
During the course of this year, the HVADC will put together a regional agricultural development master plan focused on Columbia, Ulster and Orange counties and begin to develop an agriculture economic development assistance agency focused on agribusiness. The three counties”™ Industrial Development Agencies have each pledged $25,000 per year for the next three years to help fund the pro-agriculture agency.
In addition to the relationship with those three counties, Erling said the agency has received some member-item money from state legislators, including from state Sen. Steve Saland (R”“Poughkeepsie), state Sen. William Larkin (R”“Cornwall) and Assemblyman Marc Molinaro (R”“Tivoli).
The incubator programs will work with food processors, forest product industry operators, and other production agriculture-related businesses that can benefit from this technical assistance, Erling said.
The new agency will also target for assistance those in value-added food processing, ag marketing and distribution, ag-related alternative energy production, agro-tourism and ag biotechnology.
To offer these services, HVADC will develop a business assistance program that includes identification of services needed, provides coaching and facilitation and monitors progress, he said.
To help provide these services, HVADC will put together a network of professionals from the region: lawyers, accountants, marketing specialists, financiers, professors, instructors, industry specialists and others.
In the beginning
The genesis of the HVADC was 2003, when a study by the American Farmland Trust titled At a Crossroads: Agricultural Economic Development for the Hudson Valley, which examined farming in the valley, came up with a series of recommendations to protect and strengthen the agriculture industry in the Hudson Valley. The number-one recommendation was the development of an agribusiness master plan.
“A key finding that came out of that report is that there was a lack of a regional entity to address agriculture issues,” Erling said. “We saw a need for a regional group that would have this as a full-time mission.”
After the report was released, Erling and the Columbia-Hudson Partnership began working with American Farmland Trust on how to achieve this goal.
Erling then spent the next two years “judging interest levels, and seeing if anyone wanted to participate.”
Both Orange and Ulster counties soon saw the benefit of a regional agriculture development agency, and pledged to cooperate in their efforts. The agency officially began its first day of operation Jan. 1, 2007.
Erling said the HVADC is currently talking with representatives from Dutchess County about joining.
“There”™s the opinion that farming is dead,” said Jim Galvin, a member of the agency”™s board of directors. “We want people to understand that it certainly is not. There is new agriculture coming down the road,” he said, pointing to a micro-distillery and a bio-diesel fuel plant as examples of likely new ventures in the region.
Valley spirits
The micro-distillery, in fact, was one of the first projects to receive help from the newly formed agency.
Tom Crowell founded Harvest Spirits along with his partner Derek Grout, and was provided a low-interest loan for startup capital by the HVADC.
The distillery is on Grout”™s family farm in Columbia County, Golden Harvest Farms.
“We have a 450-litre still brought over from Germany to makes distilled spirits; we”™re starting with vodka” Crowell said. “Right now, we”™re working through the licensing, but the equipment is there.”
Golden Harvest Farms is known for its apples and apple cider and the vodka is made from fermented cider.
“You can make standard, clean tasting vodka from any fermentable product,” Crowell said. “The idea is to look at how to create a value-added product, with the low cost for cider apples (the farm) is getting, we will have an abundant supply.”
The loan Grout and Crowell received from the HVADC defrayed about half the cost of the still, said Crowell.
“So the rest of the money went to marketing and bottle design,” he said. “It”™s nice at the beginning of a venture to have the startup money there, that”™s always the challenge with a new business.”
Erling said the agency will continue to seek funding, and provide startup capital and help to emerging agricultural businesses in the Hudson Valley.
“We feel like we”™re starting to bring a return to the original investors,” he said.
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