new york farm bureau - Design Your Own Handbag

Page 4 Grassroots January 2009
NYFB Board sets priorities for ’09
By JEFF WILLIAMS
jwilliams@nyfb.org
New York Farm Bureau’s Board of
Directors met in December, following the
successful 2008 State Annual Meeting, to
establish the organization’s public policy
goals for 2009 at the state and national levels.
NYFB President Dean Norton said, “This
meeting is one of the most critical Board
meetings of the year. The State Board really
takes the time to identify, analyze and discuss
issues that are vital to agricultural economy
in New York State.”
This year the Board prioritized improving
the state’s business environment for agriculture
as one of the NYFB’s top goals for the
coming year.
Farm environmental stewardship, expanding
markets, national Farm Bill implementation,
immigration reform and profitability
are also included among the Farm Bureau’s
priorities for the coming year.
“These priority issues are significant to our
agricultural industry statewide and would
have a positive impact on the farm economy
or improve the quality of rural life — two
major requirements for Farm Bureau’s priority
issues,” Norton said.
Priorities at the state and national levels
are separated into differing issue categories.
At the state level, priorities are Healthy
Farms, Healthy Economy; Healthy Farms,
Healthy Environment; and Healthy Farms,
Healthy Markets. National priorities are
Agricultural Economic Development and
Profitability, Agricultural Labor Reform and
Energy and the Environment.
State priority issues
Healthy Farms, Healthy Economy
Goal: To ensure that New York does not
adopt restrictive policies or mandates that
increase the cost of doing business in New
York. Instead, New York state should adopt
reforms needed to help grow the state’s agricultural
and small business sector.
• Ensure DEC’s new water quality regulations
do not overly burden livestock producers.
• Support continued access to critical farm
labor resources.
• Oppose unworkable restrictions on the
use of outdoor wood boilers.
• Oppose onerous trucking restrictions on
roads in the Finger Lakes Region.
• Support continued access to needed farm
pesticide products.
• Support continued state funding of critical
farm budgetary programs.
• Support tort reform measures.
• Support measures that provide relief
from burdensome property taxes and
unfunded state mandates.
Healthy Farms, Healthy Environment
Goal: New York communities receive
environmental, social and economic benefits
from the working landscapes created by agriculture.
These benefits can only be sustained
by creating public policy supporting
farm businesses and their financial stability.
This includes recognition of the importance
that land resources play in an agricultural
operation.
• Ensure that necessary funding, as set in
statute, is provided for the Environmental
Protection Fund, especially for lines that
fund farmland protection, agricultural nonpoint
source pollution control, agricultural
plastic collection and soil and water conservation
districts programs.
• Support initiatives to increase farmbased
renewable energy resources, such as
ethanol, wind power and anaerobic
digesters.
• Work to provide enhanced environmental
protections for landowners, along with
an equitable royalty structure on private and
public lands, with regard to gas, oil, and
wind leasing.
• Ensure continued funding for the E-
FARM Program.
• Support the Bigger, Better, Bottle Bill.
• Oppose overly restrictive regulations
governing open burning on farms.
Healthy Farms, Healthy Markets
Goal: Farm access to one of the largest
markets in the world is of critical importance
in today’s global economy. Efforts
must be made to bolster farm viability by
Paterson signs Indian
cigarette excise tax bill
The Associated Press
UTICA — A bill intended to enforce collection
of excise taxes on cigarettes sold at
Indian-owned stores was signed into law in
December by Gov. David Paterson.
The new law will prohibit manufacturers
from selling tobacco products without a
state tax stamp to any wholesaler that doesn’t
certify the cigarettes won’t be resold taxfree
by New York tribes, a practice that has
caused conflict between Indians and the
state for years.
“This is a new approach, and we hope it
will be the effective approach in terms of
fighting this problem,” Paterson said before
signing the bill during a stop in Utica.
The tax collection plan is part of
Paterson’s 2009-10 budget proposal that was
presented last month to the Legislature.
Another business element of that budget
would crack down on abuses of the state’s
Empire Zone program, which provides tax
breaks to companies in exchange for creating
or retaining jobs.
The Buffalo News reported that Paterson
will propose to cut the program in half by
requiring companies already getting big,
multiyear tax breaks to prove they have created
jobs they promised. That could end the
tax breaks for 2,100 companies and bring
$270 million in tax revenue back to the
state. It would be part of $9 billion in cuts
Paterson reportedly will propose.
The next step in trying to collect taxes on
cigarettes sold by tribes will be for the state
Tax Department to establish a certification
process for wholesalers within 60 days, the
governor said.
“We are trying to alleviate an issue that
has existed for a very long time, but we
won’t be able to alleviate it just today,”
Paterson said. “This establishes right in the
beginning of the process that New York
state intends to collect taxes from its citizens
who buy cigarettes.”
Violators could have their licenses revoked
and could be prosecuted criminally for perjury
or filing a false instrument, the governor
said.
The new law does not address collection
of sales taxes or gasoline taxes, said
Assemblyman William Magee, a central
New York Democrat who co-sponsored the
legislation.
The law shifts the collection from reservations
to the manufacturing and wholesale
level, a tactic that has worked to varying
degrees in other states.
expanding sales to these markets, which also
reduces the environmental impact of transporting
food from far flung regions of the
world and provides substantial health benefits
to those that purchase and consume our
products.
• Increasing buyer access in New York
City and other urban markets for both commercial
and green markets.
• Support “buy local” initiatives that
reduce food miles and support New York
State farms.
• Expand efforts to promote the sale of
healthy, locally produced foods to school
district food service programs.
• Support the sale of wine in grocery
stores to increase state revenue and benefit
our wineries.
• Support continued funding of critical
farm budgetary programs and oppose fee
increases that suppress farm economic development.
• Increase rural area access to broadband,
while improving the state’s business and
road infrastructure to enhance market
opportunities.
• Improve business environment and regulatory
structure for New York’s growing
aquaculture industry.
National priority issues
Agricultural Economic Development
and Profitability
To address farm profitability issues and
further enhance agriculture as an economic
development engine for Upstate New York
and Long Island. The following programs
should be fully addressed and funded by the
federal government.
• Monitor implementation of the 2008
Farm Bill to ensure programs beneficial to
New York agriculture, including dairy and
specialty crops, are put into effect in a timely
and efficient manner.
• Support enhanced efforts by the USDA
and FDA to assure food safety and to promote
consumer confidence in the food supply
through science based research and the
use of modern technology.
• Support legislation and regulations
ensuring that agricultural imports are subject
to equivalent inspection, sanitary
requirements, pesticide use restrictions, and
quality standards as domestic produce.
• Support funding for producer driven
applied agriculture research and development
programs, as well as critical investment
in research at the Cornell University land
grant colleges and experiment stations.
• Provide a state estate tax payment deferral
for landowners that inherit farmland and
keep the land in agricultural production.
• Work for timely distribution and receipt
of disaster assistance and implementation of
permanent disaster assistance.
• Oppose animal welfare standards outside
of sound veterinary science and best management
practices.
• Continue to work for more equitable,
size-neutral dairy programs including MILC.
• Actively monitor the EPA’s Concentrated
Animal Feeding Operations and emerging air
AG TRIVIA
emissions regulations to ensure that any
developed regulations by the EPA do not negatively
impact New York farms.
• Support the concepts of a pricing system
that takes into account regional differences
in milk pricing in an effort to secure more
equitable Class I pricing for dairy farm families
in New York.
• Support federal agricultural economic
development initiatives on a regional level.
Agricultural Labor Reform
The majority of New York’s fruit and vegetable
farms, and increasingly dairy farms,
depend on immigrant seasonal and yearly
labor. Studies have shown that a large proportion
of the agricultural workforce is
working with questionable documentation.
These employees are critical to the success of
family farms in New York State. In order to
ease the labor situation, the following steps
must be taken:
• Immediate passage of federal legislation
and/or regulatory changes to reform the
H2A program to make the program an effective,
efficient, and cost effective means of
securing seasonal and year-round workers.
• Permit undocumented workers to apply
for immediate H2A status.
• End abusive practices by the
Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Agency and U.S. Border Patrol agents
towards farm employees by a prohibition on
the use of racial profiling.
• Prohibit DHS or INS from removing
workers with questionable documentation
from farms if such removal would produce
immediate crop loss or prevent harvesting,
or in the case of dairy farms, jeopardize the
health of dairy animals.
• Work to improve the guidance by DHS
regarding producer and worker responsibilities
following receipt of Social Security mismatch
notification.
• Continued federal support of Migrant
Health Care clinics, voucher programs, and
the Community Care network.
• Permit farmworkers currently working
on farms with questionable documentation
to immediately transition to H2A or other
guestworker status.
Energy and Environment
With today’s political discussions focused
on renewable energy and climate change,
New York agriculture must position itself for
new economic opportunities and be vigilant
in protecting production practices from
undue regulation.
• Ensure any air quality and/or climate
change legislation holds agriculture production
practices harmless.
• Oppose regulation that categorizes livestock
as greenhouse gas emitters (i.e. cow tax).
• Oppose efforts to broaden the definition
of navigable waters.
• Support legislation and/or regulations
that include manure management as a carbon
reduction and sequestration
strategy/practice.
• Secure additional funding for New York’s
well-established Farmland Protection
Program and the Environmental Quality
Incentives Program.
Which type of meat is No. 1 for consumption?
1. Chicken; 2. Beef; 3. Pork; 4. Turkey; 5. Lamb and mutton.
Answer: Page 6
Free Classifieds for members!
See Page 20 for details.