Congresswoman Stefanik promotes Farm Bill at Canton farm

Congresswoman Elise Stefanik held a roundtable discussion with area farmers at Greenwood’s Farm in Canton on Wednesday, Aug. 23. Also in attendance were Assemblymen Ken Blankenbush and Scott Gray. Stefanik and state representatives heard various concerns from area farmers, including solar projects limiting farmland usage and margin coverage programs that don’t fully bridge the gap for operations and expenses. NCNow photo by Jeff Chudzinski.

BY JEFF CHUDZINSKI
North Country This Week

CANTON — Congresswoman Elise Stefanik was in Canton on Aug. 24 to promote her Farm Bill at Greenwood Farm.

The congresswoman was joined by Assemblymen Ken Blankenbush, who sits on the agriculture committee in the assembly, and Scott Gray.

Numerous farmers from the North Country were in attendance, including potato farmers, maple operations and dairy farms.

According to Stefanik, her top priority with the Farm Bill is to ensure that New York farmers have a “seat at the highest levels.”

“New York is an agricultural powerhouse. We all know that. But I think a lot of times people across the country don’t realize that,” she said.

Stefanik noted this is the second Farm Bill she has worked on, with the first coming in 2018.

Though some “significant wins” were included in the previous bill in 2018, including the addition of the Dairy Margin Coverage Program, more work is required, she said.

That program, which helps bridge the gap for farmers during lean times, replaced the “disastrous MPP Program,” Stefanik said.

The Margin Protection Program was a voluntary risk management program authorized in the 2014 Farm Bill to provide dairy operations with risk management coverage at times when the price of milk or average cost of feed fell below certain levels.

“We still need to make some updates to the Dairy Margin Coverage Program to account for feed costs and input costs. So we want to work on continuing to improve that but it’s certainly better than the MPP…