Posts by Erica Frenay
The Cornell Small Farms Program is hiring! We are excited to share the application for our newest team member, a part-time Online Course Coordinator (Extension Aide IV). Over the years our suite of distance learning opportunities for farmers has swelled to include over two dozen courses with two dozen dedicated instructors. The Online Course Coordinator will take on most of the…
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By Dr. Mike Baker, Dana Havas, Nancy Glazier, Lynn Bliven, Dr. tatiana Stanton, Erica Frenay A team of Cornell faculty and Cooperative Extension educators interviewed meat processors in NYS during the COVID pandemic to better understand where there are opportunities to increase capacity and improve the resilience of our local meat industry. Executive Summary The…
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Building a resilient local food system requires sufficient meat processing capacity. The COVID pandemic revealed that NYS did not have the ability to absorb shocks, including increased consumer meat demand, leaving farmers and consumers frustrated and meat processors overwhelmed. In Fall 2020, a team of Cornell Cooperative Extension educators, Cornell Animal Science Dept faculty, and…
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The COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on both livestock producers and processors, neither of whom could keep up with the demand for local meat. As a result, the Cornell Small Farms Program and Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Livestock Program Work Team (PWT) offered a series of webinars to address some of the most common questions we were…
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Has your insurance provider told you they won’t underwrite your on-farm processing of poultry unless you complete a training? Do you need to brush up on best practices for processing meat birds on-farm? Our new self-paced online course offers detailed videos and lessons on food safety and humane techniques for dispatching and processing chickens and turkeys on-farm under…
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This has been a challenging year for livestock farmers and red meat packers in New York State. With many packers already booked solidly for 2021, livestock farmers are feeling panicked about how to get their animals harvested in a timely way. This has driven unprecedented interest in opening new slaughterhouse facilities in the state. But…
Read MoreIn Spring 2020, with the COVID pandemic in full swing, the Cornell Small Farms Program (CSFP) was hearing reports of livestock producers from around NYS who were either unable to get butcher appointments or whose appointments were being cancelled by the butcher. Livestock processing was a challenge for producers long before the pandemic. In 2006…
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The Cornell Small Farms Program’s Erica Frenay details how a glamping operation has helped diversify her farm’s income stream. In the early 2000’s, I had the joy of spending a memorable 4 days with Bill Burrows, a 6th-generation rancher and Holistic Management practitioner from Northern California. Bill told us the story of how his family…
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If you raise animals for meat in New York State, you are no stranger to the complicated logistics and roadblocks that exist in getting animals to slaughter. For many producers, the COVID-19 pandemic has made access even more difficult. We are collecting information to communicate with policy-makers the scope of the problem from farmers’ perspectives…
Read MoreSolar grazing is the use of livestock to maintain vegetation under solar panels. Utility-scale solar arrays may cover 3 million acres across the US by 2030, according to the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL). This is causing tension with farmers and farmland advocates, as the panels are often sited on good ag land, displacing…
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