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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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Despite there being over 80,000 Hispanic and Latinx employees in New York state’s agricultural sector, only 1% of farm owners identify as such. Hispanic and Latinx farming employees are the working backbone of New York State agriculture. Cornell University and associates recognize this issue and are working to address diversity inequality within the agricultural sector…
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In 2019, our director Anu Ranjarajan, and Molly Riordan, now an urban agriculture specialist with our program, published a report titled “The Promise of Urban Agriculture.” This report was drawn from data collected from a wide network of active urban growers was designed to further augment our Urban Ag project. Over the past two years,…
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Our Farm Ops project is continuing to find ways to support veterans interested in agriculture amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Recently the project expanded its offering of virtual workshops to “Veteran Learning Cohorts.” These cohorts bring together a group of veterans interested in agriculture to progress through an educational workshop together. Military veterans currently enrolled…
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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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USDA Announces ‘Pandemic Assistance for Producers’ to Distribute Resources More Equitably After Identifying Gaps in Previous Aid USDA recently announced Pandemic Assistance for Producers to distribute resources more equitably after identifying gaps in previous aid. At least $6 billion is being dedicated toward the new programs. This includes the reopening of the Coronavirus Food Assistance…
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In the latest episode of “Extension Out Loud,” a podcast by Cornell Cooperative Extension, the Cornell Small Farms Program’s director, Anu Rangarajan, shared her approach to extension work and her vision for the future of New York farm and food systems. This episode was the third of the podcast’s latest series, “Leading Through Extension,” which…
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Happy National Agriculture Day from all of us at the Cornell Small Farms Program! We extend our gratefulness to all who work hard to feed, fuel, and fiber us, fill our landscapes with beauty, help our farmers with seeds and supplies, and support agriculture as a viable and meaningful vocation. Your combined efforts continue to…
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For NYS farmers seeking to regain some control over butchering their animals, there is a middle option between being at the whim of slaughterhouse schedules and opening your own slaughterhouse. That middle ground involves taking control of the cutting and packaging of your meat in a commercial kitchen. If done properly, with access to USDA…
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Recently, our director Anu Rangarajan moderated a conversation between Natalie Baszile, filmmaker and author of the novel, Queen Sugar, and Karen Washington, co-founder of Black Urban Growers (BUGS), for a Rural Humanities webinar. In the half-century following the American Civil War, Black farmers amassed approximately 15 million acres of land. By the end of the…
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