By NEAFA President Danielle Penney-Stroop
Greetings Everyone – Happy Belated New Year! While I may have had a brief hiatus writing for our NEAFA newsletter, I have many updates to share with our membership. December, January, and February have proven to be a very busy few months. There have been two board meetings, wage and labor hearings along with campaigning efforts, lobby days, and many meetings collaborating with key industry partners to promote and improve business for the agricultural industry.
First, I would like to thank Rick Zimmerman for his many years of service as the Executive Director of NEAFA. We have truly been blessed with your commitment to agriculture and our organization. We have very hard shoes to fill! We are so grateful for your continued service and guidance as NEAFA’s Lobbyist for this next year.
In our December board meeting, the Executive Director search committee recommended to the board that John Mitchell serve as our interim Executive Director. We are grateful for John’s passion and enthusiasm to serve as our interim director, and commitment to the alliance for assisting us in obtaining a future director that possesses the skills and visions to lead us forward. We would also like to share a huge thank you to Sue Van Amburgh, the backbone of our organization who has been putting countless hours in behind the scenes, trying to keep all the ducks in a row. That is not an easy feat with 10 committees, a new E.D., lobbying meetings and campaigning season underway, and collaboration meetings of multiple organizations.
Our December board meeting also consisted of reviewing and discussing progress from our July strategy meeting. We have revised and adopted our new Mission Statement, as well as our new Value Statements, which you can find on our NEAFA website. We spent a significant amount of time reviewing our role in the GROW NY FARMS COALITION campaign, as we advocated for keeping OT Threshold at 60 hours. For more information, you can refer to Rick Zimmerman’s column from last month’s newsletter discussing NEAFA’s role, as well as my testimony from January 18th.
As you all know, the labor and wage board ultimately did not vote in favor of maintaining the 60 hour OT threshold. Since this very disappointing ruling, the coalition has had weekly strategy meetings discussing our next steps. We are all in agreement that it is important to keep the pressure on the fact that moving to 40 hours is detrimental to the viability and competitiveness of New York family farms. We also believe that if the threshold is lowered, there will be consequences felt throughout our rural communities and within our local food systems. We are appealing to the Wage and Labor board, as well as Governor Hochul regarding the advantages and importance for keeping 60hours. We are addressing the refundable overtime tax credit and process, longevity, viability, and more. Additionally, we collectively have specific asks from the Governor and legislature regarding the tax credit if we cannot amend the ruling.
The board met on January 31st to review, discuss, and amend our legislative priorities and prep for our lobby day (Tuesday Feb 1). You can find our 2022 Legislative Priorities document on the NEAFA website. This year we stepped slightly outside of our normal process and collaborated with NEDPA, as well as NYDFA, on a few of the initiatives that collectively benefit the dairy industry in NYS. I applaud the board for their willingness to listen and adopt these initiatives as future priorities and discussion points with our legislature. The importance of demonstrating a unified front and the proof of our collaboration with other organizations benefits us all.
Additionally, at our meeting, we had the pleasure to hear from Dr. Richard Stup, of the Cornell Dyson School. Dr. Stup reviewed his program at Cornell and his involvement with providing the agricultural community tools and references for key discussions with our wage and labor board hearings, as well as NYS legislators.
John Mitchell gave us his first Executive Director report, and we could not be happier and more excited with how John has hit the ground running for us. His short term focus will be getting to know the board and our membership, and also the recruitment of new members to the alliance. We also discussed upcoming events such as the Herd Health and Nutrition Conference in April, as well as the NEAFA Annual Meeting and Golf for Goodworks, at Turning Stone Resort and Casino, to be held in June. I also gave a brief update and provided the board with the meetings I have been attending for the CAO – Empire State Council of Agricultural Organizations. The 29 member council collectively establishes positions for its members to develop a united effort on fundamental economic, social, legislative/regulatory and other state and national issues affecting agriculture in New York State. CAO is built on collective strength and policy statements that are unanimously adopted by its entire membership, representing numerous facets of New York’s agricultural industry
And in closing, thank you to Rick Zimmerman for coordinating and preparing for a very effective lobby day schedule, in cooperation with board members Corwin Holtz, Michael Howlett, Lon Stephens, Dr. Kristen Reed, myself, and our Executive Director John Mitchell on a virtual basis with 11 Senators, Assemblymen, and their staff. We were the first of many agricultural organizations lobbying on behalf of NYS agriculture, and we were very happy for the time given to us, along with an encompassing engaging dialogue, and presenting and offering solutions for the economic viability and sustainability of our farms.