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Message to farmers: ‘We support you, we need you'

Renaissance, mountainkeeper and Cornell Launch Grant Fund

Kathy Daley - Reporter/Photographer
Posted 8/9/18

SULLIVAN — In response to the dairy farm crisis and to help ensure a future for farming in Sullivan County, three not-for-profits have set up a fund to offer grants to local farmers for emergencies …

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Message to farmers: ‘We support you, we need you'

Renaissance, mountainkeeper and Cornell Launch Grant Fund

Posted

SULLIVAN — In response to the dairy farm crisis and to help ensure a future for farming in Sullivan County, three not-for-profits have set up a fund to offer grants to local farmers for emergencies or upgrades to the family farm.

“There is a real need to support local family farms and to help them to be successful,” said Ramsay Adams, director of Catskill Mountainkeeper in Livingston Manor. “It's one of the most important things we can do to sustain longterm economic development. Family farming is a large economic engine for the county.”

Catskill Mountainkeeper, Cornell Cooperative Extension and Sullivan Renaissance have established the fund to offer grants for emergency relief, for stop gap measures or for agricultural projects to keep small farms viable and operating.

“Over the last two decades,” noted Colleen Monaghan, director of Cornell Sullivan County, “sources of public grant funding for farm and agricultural business projects has declined. This is a way for the local community to close that funding gap.”

Denise Frangipane, director of Sullivan Renaissance, pointed out that Sullivan County's rural beauty is dependent on farms.

“The way our community looks and feels, what is beautiful, is our farms,” she said. “And these are our neighbors - our vegetable farmers, poultry farmers, dairy farmers. The fund allows the community to help support agriculture.”

The three agencies launched the fund, called FarmHearts, in response to the imminent concern of six dairy farms losing their milk market, and in the awareness that the county's handful of additional dairy farms are likely to face the same future.

Myers Century Farm in Jeffersonville, and the Kays farm, Dan Peters farm, Ryan Whitmore farm and two Diehl farms, all in Callicoon, recently received an extension on their milk processor's cut-off date. The farms will continue to ship their milk until fall.

Ramsay Adams said the FarmHearts fund is up and running with fund-raising taking place now and seed money available. Grant writing and private contributions will also replenish the fund.

FarmHearts will offer money for items related to small farm operations, or for repairs or purchase of equipment, repairs to farm buildings, consultant and/or legal fees, gas and electric bills or other initiatives.

Grants of up to $2,500 will be available. Depending on the nature of the request, technical assistance may also be available. Payments will be disbursed from Catskill Mountainkeeper.

Farmers must submit a one-page grant application along with cost estimates and documentation of the requested expenses. Applicants will learn within 30 days whether they have been approved. But grants may be available sooner in the case of emergencies.

A five-person advisory committee will review the grant requests. That committee will include representatives of the three agencies, along with Barbara Gref of Bethel Woods and former poultry farmer Bob Kaplan, who serves as chairman of Cornell Sullivan.

For more information, those interested may visit www.farmheartsny.org. To donate digitally, go to gofundme.com/farm-hearts/

Mail donations may be sent to Cornell Cooperative Extension Sullivan County at 64 Ferndale-Loomis Rd., Liberty, NY 12754 or Catskill Mountainkeeper at 47B Main St., Livingston Manor, NY 12758 with "FarmHearts" written in the memo section. Both organizations can also take cash or credit.

FarmHearts is a reinvigoration of a program begun in 2011 by, among others, actor Mark Ruffalo, who has lived in Sullivan County since 1995. Adams said Ruffalo is delighted to see a “reinvisioning” of FarmHearts, which lent financial support, ran awareness programs and linked young people with food and agriculture classes at SUNY Sullivan.

For further information on today's FarmHearts, call Ramsay Adams at 845-439-1230.

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