NY Budget Troubles Sideline Ag Projects

While Uncle Sam deliberates on ways to pass regulatory costs down to states, many states are still struggling to find monies to avoid running up budget deficits. One of the biggest struggles is in New York, where proposed continued funding for many agriculture programs was simply eliminated.

Past-due budget deliberations have iced more than 100 research projects and support services farmers rely on. For instance, Governor Paterson's proposed 2010-11 budget eliminated funding for the New York Farm Viability Institute, forcing the institute to suspend 109 research and outreach projects.

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NY Budget Troubles Sideline Ag Projects

Projecting Cropped Biomass Supplies: The Landowner Factor

New York Biomass Study Focuses on Landowner Choices and Preferences in Determining how Much Biomass Can be Grown and at What Cost

A reliable and affordable biomass supply is the starting point for any biofuel or bioenergy project. Although the level of detail in biomass supply shed assessments has increased in recent years, all the standard approaches ignore an essential element—the opinions and preferences of the people who own and make decisions about the land...

The question of where biomass crops fit into a complex mixture of overlapping agricultural and “lifestyle” uses for rural land has also intrigued the Farm Viability Institute, a nonprofit organization that has funded applied agricultural research in New York State since 2004. 

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Projecting Cropped Biomass

New York Needs to Relax on Wine

New York liquor retailers oppose Gov. Patersons proposal to let supermarkets sell wine -- but it would be a clear winner for everyone else. Indeed, when it comes to the value of more liberal laws on wine sales, New York could learn a lot from Virginia.

The opposition lobby calls itself The Last Store on Main Street -- but it barely hides the fact that it just wants to keep its monopoly. At a recent rally of the group, Gregory Gorea of West Seneca Wine and Liquor explained: "We don't need to be on a more level playing field."

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New York Needs to Relax on Wine

The Bee Philosopher

New York Beekeeper Provides 
Sanctuary for Bees

WEST NYACK, N.Y. — Ron Breland has been many things: a marine, a self-described “corporate geek” and a successful Manhattan commercial photographer. But he says that when he dies, “In heaven, I’ll just be Ron Breland — beekeeper.”

Ron Breland keeps a lot of bees. He runs a “bee sanctuary” on a 600-acre farm outside Albany and has more hives at a friend’s 50-acre biodynamic farm in Claverack, N.Y.At the moment he’s “keeping his bees in the fold” at his garden center, Bumps & Co., run out of his home in West Nyack.

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The Bee Philosopher