New York dairy farms

Yeah, it's a lot of work and time - but fun at the same time. Especially mid-winter if the sun comes out. I get a kick out of seeing kids coming for the first time. Kind of hard to convince some of them that this was once the only way to have ice in the summer.

Everybody wants a wal mart, but the tax abatements given to the corporations do not equal the increased income brought by the BORG (Big Orginization).

I guess when we start buying bread from china, we will be toast.

Then the farmer gets old, has all this land, none of the family are interested in it because of the hard work, long hours and no payout for being involved with it. The farmer has to retire, land goes up for sale, and the developers eat it up, with no regard for the impact of what they propose to develop to the surroundings. The developer is without any doubt motivated by greed, there is no thought or care about agriculture,the long traditions of farming or other alternative uses of the land except to exploit it's value to the fullest by developing it and taking the money. It's blood money, dirty blood money. It's traitorous, it defies what built this country and fed all those who built it, and stood proud to be an American Farmer.

Housing is a needed commodity, but how far does it have to go, until every acre of land is developed ? The times we live in are rapidly changing and the future of things do not appear to be so bright. Reality has nothing to do with negative thinking here, it would be nice to find the blessing in disguise for the future of agriculture around here, but there is none.

This subject irks me to no end. I'll say it to anyone without regard of their opinion, if you are a developer reading this, go pound salt, too bad, I don't want to hear it and have a nice day !

My town has well over a dozen proposals on the table that will effectively remove over 2000 acres of land, including a super walmart,( which I think was successfully tunred down, they already have one 1/2 mile away!)and it's mind boggling because we don't have the infrastructure, the 2 lane state road, our only road, is already bumper to bumper except at 3:00 a.m.

One developer who proposes a large subdivision behind our place, is already extremely wealthy with developments that were long established years ago in the nearby cities, not in the ag land. It's never enough, you need that extra wealth, that's all its about, yet they try to convince the people at the planning board and zoning board meetings you need all this, no, you have to have all this, they just tore down 11 houses for a walgreens, now rite aid ( both pharmacy/convenience type stores) wants to tear down more houses for a new building, only 1/2 a block from their existing and more than adequately sized building which will become an empty one when they are done, well gee why can't you raze your own buulding and build there, nope, can't lose that 6 months of revenue. The developer mentality does not cater to common sense or care about the impacts of their actions to the future of the town's quality of life. After it's done, there's no turning back. Funny thing is, one of the residents of those homes, wants the proposal approved, so she can finally sell her home that no one wants to buy now since the traffic is so bad, tractor trailers rattling the windows, she's been there since 1940, but because of "progress" the place is not really hospitable any more.

People have a right to sell and develop, which is fine, and understood that you should be able to do as you like with your land investment but around here it is raging out of control, the town is under seige by greedy developers with all the proposed developments, taking as much land as can be had. The farmer has no choice but to sell due to the circumstances of their position today. The proposed development behind my place will be an upgrade for all the middle eastern foreigners who we give great financial aid to educate them and house them, so they can attend one of the top engineering schools in the country nearby, they live in old apartment complexes now, but just wait until these new places are occupied, it will not be as they show in their planned development district PDD proposals. It's traitorous and it's true, we are getting over run by immigrants already, mostly middle easterners, and asians, they need homes too, so you have to sell them homes and condos built by developers on the prime farmlands. It's not about racism either, however do I really want middle easterners and that bizarre culture taking over the neighborhood, after having been 20 blocks north of the WTC when it was attacked, and when it was first bombed in '93. These events leave an undeniable, indelible mark in ones mind, trust me on that, and it becomes associated with the race and culture of those who did it. Specks in the distance falling, those were people, innocent people, nope, I don't care what anyone thinks of me on that anymore, the events of '01 were enough for me to formulate my opinions there. During the moment of silence on the 2nd anniversary there were middle easterners cursing the occasion on the streets next to where we gathered, we should have savagely reacted to this disrespect, for some reason we did not break file, these people are all around us, and they are all over NYC in the outer boroughs. Developers take the farmland, it's ripe for the picking, then the housing they profit from is occupied by foreigners who are increasing the local population drastically.

What was the question again, oh, dairy farms, what dairy farms, they've been sold to our enemies in small increments over long periods of time so we don't notice what is going on.

The only saving grace around here is the horse industry, they're the only ones with enough money and need for land, I'm thankful for one that bought quite a bit of land nearby, they also put up a lot of hay themselves on land they had my neighbor plant. Really not going to find many other buyers that won't build houses. Some organic vegetable farms do exist, but there is only so much you can do there.

We're not that far from NYC, and the traffic through here to Vermont is unreal now, NJ plates are everywhere. Their land (NJ) is mostly gone, except south jersey. I worked on some large subdivision projects down there, one developer K Hovnanian, made huge fortunes with subdivisions of beautiful farm lands down there, thousands and thousands of acres, I worked as a D8 operator pushing 627 scrapers, on some really nice farms, watched silos torn down, barns demolished and farmhouses demolished, the soils raped by machinery and saw hundreds upon hundreds of houses built with 40 feet between them.

How do you stop it, the population is just increasing, people want out of the city, it becomes a big wheel with a lot of momentum, farming, what's that, just something this wheel runs over.

My neighbor who is one of the last farmers in this town or should I say on this end of town, did several hundred acres of corn this year and did very well on the yields, he also harvested a few hundred acres for the one of the largest dairy farms left in the county, their combine burned up, his combine and big ole tandem grain truck sure was busy this year, but once he's not able to do it anymore, hard to say whether anyone in family would still plant crops and harvest in addition to their full time jobs. He is the farmers farmer, the definition of the word farmer, the epitomy of farming itself, for over 50 years, something I've always admired, strange as it sounds, this land was full of these kind of families. The meaning of Farm to Market road means nothing anymore, just a name.

Years back there was a definitive line between the nearby city and the the rural farm lands, I'm right on the edge, and we are now surrounded by development, all of it at once, why?, because it pays.

We have good soils, never much drought, usually too much rain, the crops do well here for the most part, the growing season is fine, the landscape is beautiful rolling hills surrounding the hudson river basin, with mountains beyond our gentle rolling hills, also prime for development.

It's sad what things are coming to and realizing change is inevitable, some of which is not bad, but most of which is, when it comes to the demise of agriculture, tradition and the values of what farmers established as a culture, by the loss of their lands to developers due to the unfortunate economics that present no other alternatives.

Here's a scene that won't be much longer around here, take notice in the distance, the belfry of an old schoolhouse and way off in distance, A DAIRY FARM, gee where'd that come from, those hills will be littered with homes.

You can look 360 degrees from this spot and most of what you see is the rolling hills, with the mountains in the distance.

To where ? That's the problem. I left NYS 6 yrs. ago as a ret.DEC officer). My ancestors farmed for 150 years in NY's Onondaga Co. Taxed out. Just a cookie cutter suburb now. I agree, there's no stopping the downward spiral now. You have to block it out somehow-or go crazy

I just read in the paper that those same 2 pharmacy/convenience stores, Walgreens & Rite Aid, will be doing more destruction nearby, they work in pairs, wherever you see a mcdonalds, a burger king pops up, or vice versa.

On 2 more proposed locations, they want to demolish 2 buildings one built in 1797 and another is an old farmstead, from a family that started farming in the 1600's. It's sad, there is no regard for any of the history or the land, because it does not pay.

With so much of this going on now, I can see being uprooted from this place which dates back the 1830's, what else can you do, they'll just force you out eventually indirectly or directly. There is an activist group that has mustered a lot of hatred here, beacuse they have worked hard to keep the town in check on these proposed developments,they helped stop walmarts, but beyond that though, not much else is standing in the way. Can't blame people for selling, the developers offer good money for these places.

I agree, where do you go after being forced out. Well one has to keep their sanity, it's just sad, because not much can be done to stop this.

Makes you feel like this bale looks, the last one:

Once a dairy, nice hay ground, grows tall and thick, with minimal weeds, there was so much hay ground here years back, I don't think weeds existed LOL !

Very sad but very true. And that saying applies to numerous other places that choke out the common man with feel good social programs and high taxes on everything.