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In 1998, I became a New York Farm Bureau member, joined the Board of Directors of Delaware County Farm Bureau, and began representing Delaware County at all the NYFB Annual Meetings as a Voting Delegate. During this period, I am proud that Delaware County has had more resolutions become NYFB policy than any other County. My desire to become NYFB president is grounded in a belief that we need to broaden and deepen the work Delaware County resolutions initiated for the past ten years. Nearly all the resolutions I proposed are directed at preserving and growing what I believe is the heart of New York agriculture; the self-employed family farm. Currently, the majority of New York farmers are self-employed. These self-employed farmers are the highest taxed, most regulatory burdened, least protected New Yorkers. Consequently, the policies I introduced recognize that NYFB policy towards legislative and regulatory changes should be shaped by their impact on the self-employed. If I become President of NYFB, I will fight on a state and national level to lower taxes on the self-employed, and to ease regulatory burdens on New York family farms. Here’s how:
Restructure the milk pricing system for dairy farmers. As a member of DCFB, I am keenly aware of the economic difficulties that dairy farmers face. We share the same infrastructures, and I know that without them, I will not survive myself. If elected President of NYFB, I promise to fight for restructuring the milk pricing system, and to make that fight NYFB’s single most important priority issue; dairy farmers need to get a price for milk that reflects their costs and labor. A failed system, not the ineptitude of New York dairy farmers, is at the heart of the dairy crisis. Defeat unnecessary and burdensome regulations that are driving family farms out of business. Currently, the future of many small vegetable farms in New York is threatened by the real prospect of mandatory chemical disinfectants in wash water. Such a regulation would put many small growers like myself out of business, or, at a minimum, severely impact our direct sales and local business. This has already happened for small apple cider producers after mandatory pasteurization became New York State law. My view on food safety regulations is summarized by the preamble of NYFB’s policy on food safety: “When regulations, not unacceptable risk, drive producers out of business, neither public safety nor consumers are served. The integrity of the producer and the judgment of the consumer must remain the cornerstone of food safety.” Tear down local trade barriers that keep farmers from processing and distributing on farm their own products. Regional, sustainable and local food production have become buzzwords to politicians and consumers in the last couple of years. I have made my living growing organically and built my business around direct sales for the last nineteen years. As a result I am a particularly authentic spokesman for these ideas as they relate to New York agriculture. In response to the push for regional food production, Cornell researchers recently published a paper describing how much of New York State’s food needs New York farmers could provide given the diet of the “average” citizen. Their conclusion was that New York farmers could provide 25% of the dietary needs of New Yorkers. From this statistic I think there is one logical conclusion: New York farmers do not need Free Trade Agreements like NAFTA and GATT to make a living; they need access to their own local and regional markets where demand is far higher than supply. We do not need to tear down international trade barriers to make a living; we need to tear down local trade barriers. As President of New York Farm Bureau, I promise to promote regional agriculture, and to do all in my power to enable farmers to take advantage of local markets by tearing down local trade barriers (in the form of state and federal regulations) that keep farmers from processing and distributing on farm their own products, from meat to milk to cider. Enable the self-employed to deduct their health insurance premiums. Obtaining economic justice for the self-employed starts with enabling the self-employed to deduct their health insurance premiums as a business expense, as is already the case for corporations. For a self-employed family farm paying a $10,000 insurance premium, they would save $1,500 on their Self-Employment Tax. Build on proven leadership and expand our membership. Since I became a member of NYFB, District 9 has been served admirably by Board Members Roger Hamilton and John Radliff, both of whom I am proud to have nominated. This has also allowed me to serve as a board member of other organizations dedicated to meeting farming needs. Since 1998, I have served on the Board of Directors of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York. This experience will serve me well if I become President of NYFB. When I first got on the Board, we had one full time staff person for organic certification, and an executive director with no staff. Now, NOFA-NY is the largest organic certifier in the state with eight employees and several contract laborers. Further, our executive director has five employees working under him to fulfill NOFA-NY’s research, educational, advocacy and promotional goals. The contributions to NOFA-NY that I am proud to have made include establishing a system where membership votes on policy resolutions at our Annual Meeting, authorship and implementation with Elizabeth Henderson of The Farmer’s Pledge (an alternative to USDA Certified Organic for farmers that grow organically but do not agree with the USDA Certified Organic Program), and strong support for NOFA-NY’s transition to our current executive director. Since our new executive director took the helm two years ago, NOFA-NY’s membership has grown 50%, our Annual Conference attendees has tripled to over a thousand, and we are running significantly in the black. I will use my experience as a board member to reverse the decline in NYFB membership, and increase revenues to enable staff to provide more direct benefits to members. Both my parents were brilliant lawyers. As a self-employed attorney whose staff included only a secretary, my father argued about twenty cases in the US Supreme Court in defense of constitutional rights as diverse as leafleting in a shopping mall to firing an unregistered pistol in self defense. My mother was a refugee from Nazi Germany; she went on to become one of Yale’s first female law school graduates, and retired as a federal judge. They taught me to not to be afraid to speak my mind, and to be intolerant of sloppy thinking, greed and dishonesty. Although I chose to get dirty for a living, my family, college and other life experiences trained me to know how to listen to an argument and to fashion one. As we enter troubled economic times, I believe it is the most important ability for a leader of New York Farm Bureau to have. When I push NYFB policy in Albany and Washington, no politician will be able to dismiss me as a typical conservative or progressive. Rather, they will see a farmer as skilled in the use of language and policy as they, but whose allegiance lies fully with a farm community where knowledge is hard won through years of understanding the meaning of dirt beneath our fingernails. Thanks for your attention. Let’s do right by our family farms. |
OR THE PAST twenty-one years, my living has depended on growing vegetables organically in Delaware County with my wife, Lisa Wujnovich, at Mountain Dell Farm. We raised two children on this farm, our 22-year-old son, Bera, and 19-year-old daughter, Shane. Most of our income is derived from direct sales to restaurants in New York City, although we also have a small local business and a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture, where members pay up front a fee for twenty weeks of vegetables).