In addition to all the other challenges facing the agricultural industry on Long Island — everything from the expense of doing business here to an increasingly burdensome regulatory environment — there’s one obstacle that transcends all others: age.
The average age of a farmer on Long Island is 55.
Suffolk County, which long held the title of the number one county for agriculture in New York, has slipped to number three.
Farmingdale State College, founded as New York State School Of Agriculture on Long Island in 1912, no longer has an agricultural program. The state college instead has a department of urban horticulture and design.
Young people, even those growing up in families that have been farming here for many generations, are not interested in farming the way their parents and grandparents were. And without a new generation of farmers to take the reins, what will happen to agriculture on Long Island?
“Agriculture is such an important part of our history, such an important part of the local economy, and it is facing so many challenges,” Peconic Land Trust president John Halsey said Friday, at a press conference in Baiting Hollow called to announce the “Farmers for the Future” agriculture capital equipment program.
Halsey was joined by an assortment of state, county and local officials at the Cornell University Long Island Horticultural Research and Extension Center on Sound Avenue to announce the program, funded by a $1 million grant from the Long Island Regional Economic Development Council, through Empire State Development Corporation.
Peconic Land Trust will administer grants of up to $25,000 each to fund capital and infrastructure investments by new farm operations, farmers in transition or established farm operations upgrading equipment and infrastructure to come into compliance with the federal Food Safety Modernization Act or other local food safety regulations, according to PLT project manager Luke McKay. The grant program will reimburse up to 20 percent of the cost of new or used capital equipment and infrastructure, McKay said. Only one application per farmer or farm operation will be considered.
“Three things are needed to cultivate young farmers,” said Suffolk County Planning Commission chairman David Calone, “exposure to farming, access to land and assistance with capital costs.”
The new grant program is intended to help address the need for assistance with capital costs, he said.
Peconic Land Trust has an extensive program in place to help provide access to land for young farmers, Halsey said. “We have more than 250 acres available for leasing on the north and south forks. Our goal is to help them get to a place where they can afford to buy their own land,” he said.
Dylan Ford, 17, an 11th grader at Riverhead High School, said he wants a career in agriculture. It’s an aspiration he’s had since he was a young child, inspired by a family friend, farmer David Fink of Wading River.
Dylan works at Fink’s Farm Stand, a job he’s held for the past three years.
“I know this is what I want to do. I’ve known it since watching my Uncle Dave on the tractor, seeing him at work. It just inspired me to do what he does,” Dylan said.
Dylan said he plans to earn a degree in agriculture and come back to Long Island to farm. He doesn’t know yet where he might farm here. He doesn’t have land to farm. That’s the first big hurdle, he said.
“He is exactly the kind of person our programs can help,” Halsey said, “and exactly the kind of person we need to make sure we help.”
Information and applications for the new capital and infrastructure grant program are available on the Peconic Land Trust website.
