Sustainable and Profitable
Elizabeth Henderson (ehendrsn@zlink.net)
Mon, 22 Jun 1998 21:51:42 -0400
Dear Greg and Lei,
The questions you are asking about sustainability and keeping farms going
financially are just the ones we are looking at here in Wayne County in our
Agricultural and Farmland Protection Plan. In fact, there are several NY
counties involved in this kind of planning activity. In implementing our
plan, the County Board of Supervisors added a new position to the planning
department, and a month ago we hired our first Ag. Economics Development
Specialist. His job will be to assist farm businesses, farmer coops,
improve marketing, foster ag. tourism, persuade town zoning boards to adopt
farm business friendly zoning, and work with out board to develop a new
farmer program for the county.
The Farming Alternatives Program(FAP)at Cornell and the NE Sustainable
Ag. Working Group received a SARE Chapter 3 grant to foster a network among
people in the NE who are doing agricultural development. Even though you
are outside the region, I imagine you could join in the listserve FAP is
setting up on this topic. You access it through listproc@cornell.edu.
Your subject should be SUBSCRIBE FARMING-ALTERNATIVES-L first name last
name. The S SAWG is also working in this area, fostering value added
enterprises on farms or using local farm products. I do not know the
specific projects, but I recall that the MW SARE has funded projects on
value-added and improved marketing for local farm products too.
Farming Alternatives has several useful publications - you can reach them
through Duncan Hilchey - dlh3@cornell.edu.
Yes, farms must survive economically to be sustainable. The mission
statement of the National Campaign for Sustainable Ag. is "economically
viable, environmentally sound, socially just and humane."
Peace,
Elizabeth
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