Western New York

Press Release:

Congressman Chris Jacobs (NY-27) released the following statement after it was announced General Motors (GM) is investing nearly $154 million into its Western New York Lockport Components Plant for electric motor manufacturing. 

 

“I applaud General Motors for recognizing the immense value of our region and for making an investment that will revolutionize their plant here and keep Western New York a leader in advanced manufacturing. Investments like these will ensure good-paying jobs and innovation thrive here, and I look forward to working with General Motors to support this effort and bring our WNY manufacturing industry into the future."

Here's a news release sent today from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.

As Congress begins debate over the next Farm Bill, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand today announced that she will hold listening sessions around the state over the next several months to discuss new efforts to help New York farmers and farming communities.

(Times, dates and places have not yet been announced.)

As the first New Yorker to serve on the Senate Agriculture Committee in nearly 40 years, Gillibrand plans to focus on key areas of the Farm Bill that will have major influence on New York.

These area include access to financing, new market opportunities, assistance for specialty crops, and investments in renewable energy. From dairy farms, black dirt farms, and apple orchards to vineyards, artisanal cheeses, and other specialty crops, New York farmers and communities will have a lot to gain in the next Farm Bill.

“New York is home to the hardest working farm families and the finest locally grown produce in the world, but outdated regulations and a bad economy are hurting our farmers and farming communities across the state,” Senator Gillibrand said.

“We need to make sure the next Farm Bill is a good deal for New York. I plan to take the next several months to listen to farmers and businesses in every corner of the state and discuss my ideas on how to help farmers survive and prosper in the new economy.”

She will begin the listening sessions this month in Western New York, the Finger Lakes region and the Hudson Valley.

More than 35,000 farms stretch across 7.1 million acres statewide -- one-fourth of the state -- generating nearly $4.5 billion for New York’s economy.

Here are some notable statistics:

• Western New York is home to nearly 6,500 farms stretching across over 1 million acres and generating over $710 million for the economy.
• The Rochester/Finger Lakes Region is home to more than 6,000 farms stretching across nearly 1.5 million acres and generating over $1 billion for the economy.
• Central New York is home to more than 6,000 farms stretching across over 1 million acres and generating nearly $736 million for the economy.
• The Southern Tier is home to more than 5,000 farms stretching across over 1 million acres and generating over $372 million for the economy.
• The Capital Region is home to nearly 5,000 farms stretching across nearly 850,000 acres and generating over $430 million for the economy.
• The North Country is home to more than 4,000 farms stretching across over 1 million acres and generating more than $1 million for the economy.
• The Hudson Valley is home to more than 2,000 farms stretching nearly 135,000 acres and generating over $120 million for the economy.
• Long Island is home to over 640 farms stretching across over 35,000 acres and generating nearly $260 million for the economy.

Issues to be Addressed in Listening Sessions

Providing Access to Capital

Like all small businesses, family farms are struggling to secure access to the financing they need to grow or, in many cases, survive in this difficult economy. Gillibrand plans to strengthen the Business and Industry Guaranteed Loan Program to help New York farmers develop value-added products.

She also plans to bolster the Farm Services Agency (FSA) loan program to give farmers the resources they need to purchase land, livestock, equipment, feed, seed and other supplies. The senator recently helped secure an additional $39 million for FSA operating loans to help give New York farms the capital they need.

Additionally, Gillibrand will fight to exempt New York State from the USDA’s 10,000 population criteria – the maximum population to qualify for USDA water and wastewater funding. Many parts of New York would be ineligible for funding under the new USDA guidelines since many New York towns include villages and other municipalities, putting a town’s population over the 10,000 threshold.

Red Hook, Arcardia, Kirkland, Utica, Cortlandville, Herkimer, Waddington, Massena, Alden, Sullivan, Wawarsing, Kingsbury, Plattsburgh, Lansing, Lysander, Fallsburg, Lowville, LeRay and Moreau are already threatened from being denied access to these resources.

Addressing the Dairy Crisis

Due to outdated dairy-pricing regulations, dairy farmers pay more to produce their products than they make from selling them. Senator Gillibrand has introduced legislation that would double the amount of money farmers get from the MILC program, retroactive to the low point of the crisis in March of 2009.

While raising the MILC payment rate to 90 percent will not completely make up the gap between cost of production and market rates, it will certainly help prevent more New York farms from going under.

Senator Gillibrand also introduced legislation to index the MILC rate to inflation. The MILC program payments were originally designed to help dairy farmers in their time of need, but funding levels have remained stagnant.

In the next Farm Bill, Senator Gillibrand intends to work with New York farmers to make these improvements and overhaul the milk-pricing system and secure a fair price for producers.

Additionally, she will work to make the opaque pricing system of the dairy market more transparent. Senator Gillibrand is cosponsoring the Mandatory Price Reporting Act to reauthorize the electronic price reporting of dairy prices -- helping to increase transparency -- and change price reporting from weekly to monthly.

Senator Gillibrand has also introduced legislation to make Cold Storage Inventory Reporting to the National Agriculture Statistics Service mandatory, and give the USDA the authority to audit the survey. Experts agree that reducing the influence of the thinly traded Chicago Mercantile Exchange is the best way to increase market transparency.

Expanding New Markets

Senator Gillibrand intends to expand the Market Access Program (MAP) to enable our farmers to sell more New York products worldwide. The MAP program provides funding for the creation, expansion and maintenance of foreign markets for U.S. agricultural products.

Gillibrand is also planning to introduce an infrastructure provision in the Business and Industry Guaranteed Loan Program to help farmers reach new markets.

Additionally, she will work to secure more federal funding to promote the USDA’s Fresh Fruit and Vegetable program to give New York farms more opportunities to supply schools with fresh, locally grown products.

Targeted Assistance to Specialty Crop Farmers

Specialty crop farmers stand to gain tremendous benefit from the conservation programs in the Farm Bill. Senator Gillibrand intends to bolster: the Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program (FRPP); the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP); and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP).

Gillibrand will also introduce a new program -- called the Conservation on Muck Soils (COMS) -- to provide additional assistance to New York’s specialty crop farmers.

Investing in New Sources of Clean, Renewable, New York Energy

New York’s agriculture industry is rich with opportunity to help lead America to a clean energy economy that can create good-paying jobs and rebuild our economy, strengthen our national security and cut pollution.

Senator Gillibrand plans to work for more investments in the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) that provides loans and grants for farmers and small rural businesses that build renewable energy systems, such as anaerobic digesters.

She also intends to push for greater investments in the Rural Energy Self Sufficiency Initiative, which assists with installation of integrated renewable energy systems in rural communities that make use of wind, solar, hydropower, geothermal and biomass sources.

Additionally, Senator Gillibrand plans to work to secure more investments in the Biomass Research and Development Program and the Biomass Crop Assistant Program to harness more of our state’s potential to convert biomass and agricultural waste into renewable energy.

The Buffalo News reports that while WNY continues to lose population, the declines seem to have slowed, according to recent estimates.

The News reports that Genesee County is down .04 percent.

While he can’t speak directly about the Buffalo region, Jan Vink, a Cornell University research specialist, sees some indication from the census estimates that migration patterns may be changing for the better in the state.

But the shift might have more to do with what’s happening in other parts of the country, whether it’s the job market or a cooling of the housing market.

“Either less people are leaving or more are coming in. I suspect it’s less people leaving,” said Vink, who reviews census data for the state. “It’s kind of an interesting trend going on all across New York State.”

Related: The D&C reports that birth rates in Monroe County, unlike the rest of the U.S., have declined.

Earlier this week, we picked up an article from Forbes magazine that dubbed Buffalo the 8th most miserable city in the nation. Just or unjust, we thought that may have touched on a few of the less desirable aspects of living in this part of the country. Sure, we've got much to boast about here in Western New York—the people, the history, the landscapes, the fresh water—but surely they are a few things about our region that we would get rid of if we could.

So, what would you scrap if you could?

Buffalo Pundit links to a story about the economic hard times in Detroit and draws a comparison with Western New York.

From the Time.com story:

When a state lives with a story line of decline for so long, it doesn’t just affect the mood. It becomes part of the culture. Whereas America’s history has been one of expanding horizons, yours has become funnel-shaped. Much like the postbellum South, Rust Belt culture looks backward at an idealized past–a nostalgia not for plantations but for three-bedroom houses paid up on blue collar salaries. (See pictures of the remains of Detroit.)

“It used to be you could get a job at one of those factories, even without an education, and make a decent living to support your family,” says letter carrier Dina Schueller, 33, of Saranac. Now her husband has been laid off from his construction job, and her brother moved to Maryland for work. Like many left-behind Michiganders, she’ll be seeing fewer family members this season.

We've had discussions about the future of Western New York before, and I know some people are skeptical that the local economy can ever grow again, but when you look at efforts to bring new manufacturing businesses to Batavia and Alabama, for example, then it's hard not to be hopeful that renewed growth is a real possibility.

WNY has a lot going for it, such as natural resources, open spaces, an available work force, affordable housing.  There's no reason there can't be a renaissance of sorts.

Philip visited the Genesee County Economic Development Council today and is working on a post now about some of the things GCEDC is doing to help expand business opportunities in the county.

The smartest thing I heard from Jon Powers during his campaign was about turning Western New York into a decent place to start new, green businesses.

I thought of that when reading Thomas Friedman's column today.

But that is not the point of this column. The point is, we don’t just need a bailout. We need a buildup. We need to get back to making stuff, based on real engineering not just financial engineering. We need to get back to a world where people are able to realize the American Dream — a house with a yard — because they have built something with their hands, not because they got a “liar loan” from an underregulated bank with no money down and nothing to pay for two years. The American Dream is an aspiration, not an entitlement.

In a green economy, we would rely less on credit from foreigners “and more on creativity from Americans,” argued Van Jones, president of Green for All, and author of the forthcoming “The Green Collar Economy.” “It’s time to stop borrowing and start building. America’s No. 1 resource is not oil or mortgages. Our No. 1 resource is our people. Let’s put people back to work — retrofitting and repowering America. ... You can’t base a national economy on credit cards. But you can base it on solar panels, wind turbines, smart biofuels and a massive program to weatherize every building and home in America.”

So even if Jon Powers ain't the 26th District, why can't WNY be a leader in creating new green businesses? Does it take a congress rep to make that happen, or just visionary entrepreneurs?