The Rural Voice, 2003-05, Page 44At the beginning of phase two the
Watershed Agricultural Council was
set up to administer the program. The
council is composed mainly of
farmers from the watershed but also
includes agribusiness leaders and the
commissioner of New York's
Department of Environmental
Protection, as well as non-voting
representatives from the public and
non-profit sectors.
The group is charged
approving the whole farm
plans but also with
administering the money in the
program.
To represent landowners
you have to understand they
want to protect their interests,
Brunette said. You also have to
develop programs with the
culture and tradition of the
people and the community in
mind. "There's culture in every
picture." he said as he showed
photos of the Catskill
Mountains area.
The Watershed Agricult-
ural Council has been
creative, setting up a
program for forestry
management since much of an
eight -county area is covered by
woodland; an education and
outreach committee, and an
agricultural and forestry
marketing committee to spur
rural economic development.
Avoiding potential dangers
to the water system has led to
programs to help farmers.
biggest dangers to an unfiltered water
system come from animal waste, for
instance, some parasites and
phosphorus. The phosphorus
encourages algae growth in the
water. The most dangerous parasites
are cryptosporidium which cannot be
killed in the chlorination process.
Since the source of the parasite is
most often calves, farmers are being
subsidized to build calf barns to keep
the calves inside where the manure
can be controlled. The manure is then
being treated differently by
composting to kill the parasite.
Precision feeding programs are
being introduced to reduce the
amount of manure to be managed and
nutrient management plans are part
of the whole farm plans in the area.
Farmers are paid $40-$50 per acre
with
per year for five years for land along
streams that has been fenced off from
pastures. There are also programs to
provide containerized trees and
bushes for riparian plantings along
streams.
But saving the family farm.
particularly in the dairy sector, may
be difficult. The milk price in New
York is so bad that the small herds in
the area. with about 35-40 cows
each, cannot survive. Brunette
bought the farmland. Now instead the
city is paying farmers a considerable
sum of money if they promise to
practice best management on their
land.
"It puts city money into the area
so it won't be turned into urban
development," Brunette said. This
reduces the debt of the farmers and
helps them stay on the land, even
making it easier for farms to be
transferred from one generation to
the next. The city has the
advantage of seeing its money
go farther by no longer having
to buy the land outright.
There's also a program for
"working" forests in the area,
defined as a forest used for
economic purposes. This is the
program Brunette has been
involved with. It's termed a
"cost -share" program but in
reality the Watershed
Agricultural Council's share
of the cost has been 100 per
cent and foresters have been
getting the basic plans for free,
a plan that would cost $250-
$300 in Quebec. To date 256
forest management plans have
been approved and more than
100 are in the process of being
prepared and approved.
Brunette's team is capable of
delivering 70-90 of these plans
a year.
These basic plans qualify
woodlot owners for other
programs such as programs to
help hem build service roads within
their woodlots for better management
as well as recreation. This makes the
woodlot more productive. There are
also tax reduction programs for those
with qualified plans.
The Rural Action Plan for Rural
Development is also helping local
sawmills develop value-added
programs such as kiln -drying,
cabinetry or manufacturing
moulding, with cost -share programs
paying 50 per cent of the cost of
improvements between $10,000 and
$100,000.
But it's easier to come up with
programs than it is to change the
culture of distrust of the city,
Brunette says, and it may be a long
time before things really change in
the region.0
New York City's Water Supply System
Catskill/Delaware
Watersheds
MINIM
......••••••••••
Fa.
...:'.••••••h..
One of the world's largest
surface drinking water
storage and supply
systems, the New York
system delivers 1.4 billion
gallons of high quality
water to 9 million
customers a day. The
watershed covers 1,594
square miles in the
Catskill/Delaware System
and 375 square miles in the
Croton system east of the
Hudson River.
Croton
Watershed
The
40 THE RURAL VOICE
expects about 250 dairy operators in
the area to disappear in the next few
years.
As part of the effort to allow
farmers to survive, the economic
portion of the program is trying to
develop new niche markets, such as
grass-fed beef using cost-effective
rotational grazing programs.
There are opportunities for niche
markets like organic farming and
grass-fed beef, Brunette said. The
population of the area doubles every
summer with people coming up from
the city, people who are willing to
pay higher prices for food grown the
way they prefer.
One of the innovative ways of
keeping people on the land while
providing the protection New York
City wants are "conservation
easements". In the past, the city