Recently, Assemblyman Christopher S. Friend (R,C,I-Big Flats) and his Assembly Minority colleagues wrote to the president and other federal officials urging that the national government take steps to help agriculture which is being harmed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, Assembly members issued a letter to Gov. Cuomo, the Assembly Speaker, the Senate Majority and Minority Leaders and the NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets Commissioner Richard Ball. They outlined several measures which could be taken to mitigate the loss being created because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We are still pursuing solutions for our family farmers to help them during this difficult time. They continue to work hard to ensure that there is food on our tables but because of restaurant, school and other food business closures, they aren’t making the sales they were prepared to supply like usual,” said Friend. “The lack of sales and the closure of many processing facilities has sadly led to the dumping of nutritious food and milk. We’ve proposed a number of solutions to help our struggling family farms, which we encourage our state to adopt.”

There are 33,400 farms in New York. The agricultural sector had already been struggling with roughly 2,100 farms lost between 2012-2017, a 20 percent reduction. The coronavirus pandemic is adding a great burden on an already struggling industry. The legislators proposed the following to mitigate the negative impact of COVID-19:

• Suspend DMV registration requirements for agricultural vehicles and farm trucks for one year;
• Suspend the highway use tax, special hauling permit fees and collection of New York State tolls for vehicles used to transport agricultural products, including milk;
• Suspend, the 60-hour overtime threshold for farm laborers enacted as part of the 2019 Farm Labor bill for one year;
• Suspend the 24-hour agricultural rest requirement during the state of emergency;
• Extend the Milk Producers Security Fund to help producers who are unable to sell because of COVID-19;
• Use additional federal stimulus money for direct cash infusions for Cornell Cooperative Extensions to assist in the provision of emergency services;
• Use federal stimulus funding to invest in rural broadband infrastructure to assist in the provision of services to farms/rural areas during uncertain social and economic times;
• Provide vouchers for food banks to purchase local dairy and agricultural products; and
• Stipulate “green nurseries” as essential businesses for the remainder of the COVID-19 crisis so that these businesses can re-open while following social-distancing guidelines.

A copy of the letter may be downloaded here.