By Chandler Hansen, Special to NEAFA
Members of the agricultural industry from across the Northeast gathered for a time of education, fellowship, and celebration at the 2022 NEAFA Annual Meeting and Forum, held June 23rd at Turning Stone Resort in Verona, NY. The theme of this year’s forum was “Strength in Numbers- A Unified Voice.”
The annual meeting opened with the FFA team from Vernon-Verona-Sherrill High School, and Immediate Past President John Clark also gave opening remarks.
NEAFA President Danielle Penney-Stroop then took to the podium, where she spoke on the alliance’s events and advocacy measures from the past year. One example she mentioned was the NY Dairy Roundtable which took place last November in partnership with NEDPA. Penney-Stroop said, “This successful event along with the commitment and ambition from our board has led to further engagement and series of meetings amongst NEAFA, NYDFA, and NEDPA. It was noted that all 3 groups are looking for opportunities to work together on legislative issues, since many of our respective issues overlap. We decided to share our legislative priority documents and identified areas that we could partner on.” Penney-Stroop also reminded attendees of NEAFA’s mission to support and sustain the agribusiness and feed industry in the Northeast. “…it is in all our best interests to somehow make a greater effort and outreach to the legislature that has little familiarity and exposure to our world – we need to cross party lines, invest in educating downstate legislators, speak the WHY and HOW we do what we do.” said Penney-Stroop. She spurred the group to continue to reach out to those who may want to join as well.
Via Zoom, Executive Director John Mitchell made remarks on the alliance, along with current challenges facing agriculture. “Farmers have faced some of today’s problems before, such as when inflation was high in the 1970s and 80s,” said Mitchell. After this turbulent time and interest rates and inflation returned to normal there was an incredible surge of Innovation over the next 2 decades. Through investments in technology, animal nutrition, breeding, crop production along with innovative management practices incredible gains have been achieved. Annual milk production per cow went from 12,000lbs to over 20,000 lbs over the next 2 decades. Corn yields went from 85 bu/ acre in the 1970’s to over 170 bu/acre today.
While the times are not exactly the same and the eventual outcome will be different I do believe that out of necessity we will enter another time of innovation. Agriculture will play a crucial role to a new order and better time as food production will always be at the forefront of our economy.
The annual meeting concluded with a legislative update by Rick Zimmerman. Zimmerman provided a recap on some of the specific legislative measures NEAFA advocated for or against during the latest legislative sessions of Northeastern states. The NEAFA News will dive into more depth on Zimmerman’s legislative recap in the August Edition.