NY Farm Bureau Salutes Women Farmers on Mother's Day

In honor of Mother's Day, New York Farm Bureau is saluting the growing ranks of women that have recently entered into farming. Here's a news release from the bureau:

Women farmers are among the fastest growing sectors in agriculture, according to recent state and federal statistics. The most recent agricultural census, done in 2007, revealed that women were the principal operators of 6,688 farms in New York on 592,787 acres of land.

"The trend of women joining this industry makes sense," said Julie Suarez, public policy director for Farm Bureau and mother of two.

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NY Farm Bureau Salutes Women Farmers

Pony Up or We'll Sue, Horsemen say

Group Threatens Suit if State Doesn't Approve $17M Loan to NYRA

Frustrated horse breeders and the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce threatened to sue New York next week if state leaders don't approve a $17 million loan to the New York Racing Association.

Republican leaders joined Joe McMahon of Saratoga Breeders and chamber President Joseph Dalton at a rally Friday outside City Hall. They said a failure by state leaders to get slot machines going at Aqueduct Race Track could derail the Saratoga Race Course meet and forever change racing in the state.

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Pony Up

Fleming Man Sells Rights to His Land to Keep it Forever as Farmland

Fruithurst Farm, in Fleming,overlooking Owasco Lak

Fleming, NY -- As a young boy Fletcher Ross learned how to drive a tractor on his family’s farm in Fleming that looks east over Owasco Lake.

He was 7 or 8 years old then and recalls wheeling the Farmall H tractor around the cropland, while his uncle lifted big fieldstones and heaved them into a wagon towed behind the tractor. They would dump the stones later.

“I’ve got some fond memories. It’s so peaceful and quiet up there,” said Ross, a retired state trooper who has owned the farm since the late 1970s.

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Man Sells Rights to Land to Keep it Farmland

Book Notes: 'Farm Hands' Heads into Second Printing

ALBION -- After nearly selling out the first run of 1,500 copies of "Farm Hands," Daily News reporter Tom Rivers has a second batch of 1,600 copies available.

The book chronicles the reporter's attempts to work at 13 local farms in 2008. The 168-page book includes 101 pictures. The self-published book was printed by Hodgins Printing in Batavia and debuted March 1.

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'Farm Hands'