The two top officers of the New York Farm Bureau told Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue that trade and immigration are the top ag issues in the Empire State, reports the Glens Falls Post-Star. “We are swimming in milk,” said vice president Eric Ooms, placing the blame on Canadian barricades to U.S. dairy.
Perdue said President Trump wants to modernize NAFTA. Canada’s supply management system and its creation of a Class 7 price category to help its producers compete against U.S.-produced ultra-filtered milk are “against the spirit of NAFTA,” he said.
During the listening session at a dairy farm in upstate New York, Perdue said small farms face challenges due to conversion of land to urban uses, concentration of production, and environmental issues. A state legislator said hemp farming could be a lucrative alternative crop. State officials hope federal regulation of hemp will be reclassified in the 2018 farm bill. The state has pledged $10 million in grants for hemp research. Perdue said there could be difficulties in hemp as a cash crop, according to the Post-Star, which quoted him as saying, “It is tough to regulate in nature, because there is an unregulated crop associated with it.”