Farmers voice concerns at GOP forum in Schuylerville

PHOTOGRAPHER: Stephen Williams

Frustrated farmers got a chance Thursday to vent their feelings to three Republican Assembly members who are developing the Republican agenda for the 2012 legislative session.

Whether the state can help isn’t clear, given the economic woes of the industry.

“There’s a lot of deeper issues, but the best thing they can do for us is reduce the local tax and regulatory burdens,” said Rick McClenning of Argyle, who recently retired from selling milking equipment to farms in New York and Vermont.

McClenning said 40 years ago equipment dealers could do all their business within a 20-mile radius, but the service area has grown to a 200-mile-long territory as dairy farms have disappeared from northeastern New York.

“You’ll see a lot of farmers going out of business. People won’t be able to afford to farm,” said Steve Rascher, who owns a maple sugar house in Shushan.

Rascher said he’s nearly 75 years old and can’t afford to hire a “greenhorn” to learn the business and become his future replacement. “I would like to have someone come in and take over without the place becoming stump city,” he said.

The Assembly members listened sympathetically during a two-hour session at the Saratoga Town Hall, part of a statewide listening tour.

“We as a [Republican] conference need to take a better look at the whole agriculture/business area,” said Assemblywoman Jane Corwin, R-Clarence, chairwoman of the Assembly Republican Steering Committee.

Also present at the forum was Assemblywoman Claudia Tenney, R-New Hartford.

Thursday’s event was hosted by Assemblyman Tony Jordan, R-Jackson. Many of those who attended were from Washington County, which still has a strong agricultural community.

Jordan said his goal is to “make New York government more efficient and remove regulatory roadblocks that prevent small businesses, particularly agricultural businesses, from succeeding.”

But the farmers themselves acknowledged some of the problems are too big for the state to fix.

Milk pricing is a federal issue that’s due to come before Congress again in 2012, and regulations on the foreign workers who do much of the menial labor on farms are tied to the national debate on immigration reform.

“I don’t know how much the state can do about guest worker programs, but that’s a very big issue for dairy farmers in New York state. Produce producers, too,” said Charles Hanehan, a town of Saratoga dairy farmer.

But there are other issues, too.

“Rural New York needs high-speed Internet, and I don’t have cell service at my house,” Kevin Jablonski of Argyle, who owns the Mack Brook Farm beef farm.

Another speaker praised state programs that protect farmland and set up plans for communities to protect their farms from development.

Jordan said the problem with state spending isn’t how much money the state spends but how it spends the money. Agricultural land-protection programs are among the items that have been severely scaled back because of the state’s financial crisis.

“I’m not a believer that a conservation easement is right for every farmer. But it sure ought to be available for those for whom it is right. It keeps the land in production,” Jordan said.

Andrew B. Squire, manager of River Edge Farm, a strawberry, melon and produce operation in Easton, said he used to deliver produce to Hannaford markets in the Boston area, but the cost of hiring workers and transportation hassles forced him to downsize.

“I’m better off as one person than when I had 20 employees,” he said after the session. “If I could get out of it what I’ve got in, I’d be gone, and that’s an honest statement.”