Jun 2, 2016Hudson Valley real estate market challenges local produce
A growing real estate market in New York’s Hudson Valley is clashing with a demand for locally grown produce.
A growing number of farms are being sold to developers, as aging owners choose to cash in on the value of land, The New York Times reports. The most recent USDA Census of Agriculture found the number of farms in the state of New York has gone down, from 38,264 in 1997 to 35,537 in 2012.
Preservationists and New York City lawmakers are working to create a preservation plan for farmland in the Hudson Valley.
Here’s more from The New York Times:
Since 1982, real estate development has swallowed more than 471,000 acres of the state’s farmland, according to data compiled by the American Farmland Trust, a preservation group.
[Councilman Daniel R.] Garodnick has proposed spending $50 million for a conservation easement program that would pay farmers the development value of their land and impose a deed restriction to permanently protect their land from development. Some farmers might use the money to make improvements, while others could lease or sell their land to other farmers.
A group of State Assembly members wrote a joint letter to [Mayor] de Blasio, a Democrat, urging him to support the conservation plan.