Good morning, it’s Tuesday.
The unpredictability of the upstate spring – 70 degrees and sunny one day, down into the 40s or even the 30s with rain, snow and wind the next – must add an extra layer of difficulty for farmers.
This is not to say that anything about farming is easy. Quite the contrary. You really have to love something to get up at the crack of dawn every day, do hard physical labor for 12 to 14+ hours, eat, go to sleep and do it all over again. Also, very few people – if anyone – is getting rich being a farmer, except for big ag, which is a whole different discussion.
Family farms, however, are quickly going the way of the Dodo, especially here in New York, which, if you weren’t aware, is actually a major agricultural state, ranking among the top 10 in the nation for the production of 30 commodities. According to the New York Farm Bureau, the Empire State is No. 1 nationally in the production of cream cheese and cottage cheese; second in apples, maple syrup, cabbage, and yogurt; and also ranks highly in tart cherries, green peas.
While 98 percent of farms in New York are family owned, the 2022 Agriculture Census found a 9 percent drop in farms – the most significant decrease in three decades – as farmers struggle with high labor and production costs. That translated into a decrease of some 1,900 dairy farms, which is going to make it tough for the state to retain is top rankings in the cheese production department.
I somehow missed National Ag Day this year (it was March 18 – the president issued a proclamation and everything).
BUT! It looks like I am just in time for the tail end of National AG WEEK, and given the importance of agriculture to this state, and the dire straits in which so many farmers find themselves, I decided to do a little look back. Call it editorial license. Also, I fully recognize the fact that without farms, there is no food, and without food, well, we can’t survive, full stop.
Anyway, back to the data, which is rather dispiriting. There were 30,650 farms in New York in 2022, down from 33,438 in 2017, and 6,502,286 acres in production, which is down from 6,866,171 in 2017. The average net farm income of $76,281 per farm in New York is slightly below the national average.
As an aside, things are not looking so rosy at the national level these days, with the USDA projecting in 2024 that American farmers would lose nearly a quarter of their income over a two-year period. Add to the mix some new 2025 pressures like bird flu and USAID cuts, and farmers are really taking it on the chin.
National Ag Day was established in 1973 by the Agriculture Council of America (ACA) to recognize the vital role of agriculture plays in our society. It was first formally observed in 1979. Part of this effort is to encourage young people to get interested in agriculture and consider careers in ranching, farming, etc.
To that end, if you haven’t read this story in the NYT from over the weekend, I HIGHLY recommend that you make some time for it. It took me down some rabbit holes that I never before imagined existed – and, though I was never a 4H kid, I certainly did not grow up in the city and am no stranger to the livestock section at the county fair.
It will be partly cloudy this morning with clouds thickening throughout the day. Temperatures will struggle to get out of the 40s.
In the headlines…
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth disclosed war plans in an encrypted group chat that included a journalist two hours before U.S. troops launched attacks against the Houthi militia in Yemen, the White House said, confirming a report in The Atlantic.
The editor in chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, wrote in an article published yesterday that he was mistakenly added to the text chat on the commercial messaging app Signal by Michael Waltz, the national security adviser.
Not only was Goldberg inadvertently included in the group, but the conversation also took place outside the secure government channels that would normally be used for classified and highly sensitive war planning.
Members of Congress in both parties exploded in anger after Goldberg’s revelation, with some Democrats calling for an investigation and potential repercussions against the national security officials involved in the lapse.
“Nobody was texting war plans, and that’s all I have to say about that,” Hegseth said outside a plane in Hawaii after being asked about Goldberg’s access to the chat.
“No, that’s a lie. He was texting war plans,” Goldberg responded. “He was texting attack plans. When targets were going to be targeted; how they were going to be targeted; who was at the targets; when the next sequence of attacks was happening.”
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was baffled by the reports of top U.S. officials unwittingly sharing war plans with a reporter. “You have got to be kidding me,” she wrote next to a wide-eyed emoticon on X.
Hesgeth over the weekend joined other Trump administration officials in virtual attacks on federal judges, lashing out at a judge who indefinitely blocked a ban on transgender troops in the U.S. military.
President Donald Trump appointed his former personal attorney Alina Habba to serve as interim US attorney in New Jersey — with Habba vowing to clean up “corruption” in her home state.
Though Trump has named several of his other former lawyers to high-ranking positions in the Justice Department, Habba will be the first of the group to serve as an interim U.S. attorney.
A federal court yesterday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from separating two transgender service members from the military under a pair of executive orders while another case moves forward.
The Trump administration told a federal judge it would not disclose any further information about two flights of Venezuelan migrants it sent to El Salvador despite a court order to turn back the planes, declaring that doing so would jeopardize state secrets.
The liberal group MoveOn has warned Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries about “deep problems” with their base regarding the Democratic Party’s response to Trump.
The group wrote a letter to the two leaders, saying that Democratic lawmakers have been “inactive” in Congress. The memo features results from a survey of MoveOn’s members, highlighting the challenges from progressive supporters.
The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to block a ruling from a federal judge in California ordering it to rehire thousands of fired federal workers who had been on probationary status.
The emergency application is one of several that appear to be headed to the Supreme Court, a reflection of the scores of lower court rulings that halted administration initiatives.
The United Nations announced that it would reduce its presence in Gaza by withdrawing about one-third of its international workers there, following repeated strikes of its facilities by Israel.
Secretary General António Guterres said the decision to reduce the organization’s footprint in Gaza was “difficult” at a time when humanitarian needs were soaring and as a resumption of Israeli attacks were killing hundreds of Palestinians.
The decision comes after an Israeli tank strike hit one of the UN’s compounds in Gaza last week, killing one staffer from Bulgaria and wounding five other employees.
One of President Trump’s former campaign managers, Chris LaCivita, filed a defamation lawsuit against The Daily Beast over its reporting on how much he was paid by the campaign.
A 21-year-old Columbia University student who has lived in the United States since she was a child sued Trump and other high-ranking administration officials yesterday after immigration officials tried to arrest and deport her.
Yunseo Chung, a legal permanent resident and junior, participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the school. The Trump administration says her presence in the US hinders the administration’s foreign policy agenda of halting the spread of antisemitism.
Chung accused Trump and other officials of “attempting to use immigration enforcement as a bludgeon to suppress speech that they dislike, including Ms. Chung’s speech.”
About 50 professors turned out in a steady drizzle outside the campus gates to protest federal research funding cuts and what they criticized as Columbia’s conciliatory response to the Trump administration.
Dozens of masked protesters swarmed Columbia University’s campus less than 72 hours after school officials enacted restrictions curbing face coverings to comply with a Trump administration order aimed at combatting antisemitism in higher ed.
Detained Columbia University protester Mahmoud Khalil hid his ties to the controversial United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees on his visa application, the feds have alleged.
The families of hostages kidnapped by Hamas during the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack are suing Khalil and several student groups for allegedly “aiding and abetting Hamas’ continuing acts of international terrorism.”
New York City’s congestion pricing raised about $52 million in toll revenue in February as Trump and Gov. Kathy Hochul remain in a standoff over his bid to end the program.
The haul means the MTA raked in just over $100 million through congestion pricing between its launch on Jan. 5 and the end of February. The agency reported it spent a combined $23 million on expenses to run the tolls over the same period.
District attorneys across New York are urging state legislative leaders to support proposals from Hochul to amend rigid pretrial discovery rules in criminal justice statutes that they contend are resulting in too many cases being dismissed for “technicalities.”
Hochul blamed the laws — which require prosecutors to speedily hand over a mass of discovery evidence to defense attorneys, or else have the case dismissed — for a statewide drop in domestic violence convictions.
New York’s Department of Health reversed course on a long-planned administrative transition for a popular home care program, and announced yesterday that they will extend a deadline that health care advocates have called rushed and mismanaged.
The Hochul administration announced a “grace period” for consumers caught in the middle of its turbulent overhaul of the state’s $9 billion home care system – but continued to deflect blame for the chaos.
The Hochul administration has retreated from a threat to pursue legislation that would have banned roughly 2,000 correction officers who declined to return to work at the end of a recent three-week strike from returning to that profession in New York.
The governor convened a roundtable of survivors of domestic violence, advocates and local district attorneys to discuss New York State’s commitment and investments in combating domestic violence and supporting survivors.
Hochul said more domestic violence cases are being thrown out due to what she calls senseless loopholes in the law.
A group of Albany Democrats want Hochul to fight back against the Trump administration by refusing to send regularly scheduled state tax dollars to the White House.
Hochul’s proposed guardrails on Mayor Eric Adams are going nowhere. A misunderstanding of New York City politics and a plan unpalatable to most Council members meant the wheels began coming off the governor’s proposal soon after she set it in motion.
Adams wants New Yorkers to know that he is running for re-election despite the fact that he’s skipped every candidate forum in the race. “I know what I’m doing. That’s all I can say to you,” he told reporters.
The mayor said that he is campaigning through events such as his semi-regular town halls with New Yorkers in different corners of the city and speaking at houses of worship.
Adams defended involuntary removals of mentally ill people to hospitals and said his City Council critics need to get out of their “sterilized environment” after a Council report slammed the practice as inefficient and detracting from other long-term strategies.
Adams attacked ex-Gov. Cuomo’s handling of COVID and his nursing home scandal. “Someone said, well, he’s a great manager. Well, he darn sure didn’t manage that crisis well,” the mayor said of the former governor at a press briefing.
Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani has pocketed $8 million in his increasingly formidable bid to become New York City’s next mayor, maxing out his fundraising limit.
Mamdani is suspending fundraising for his campaign after raking in enough money to reach the legal spending cap — becoming the first candidate in the 2025 election cycle to meet that milestone.
Roughly 7,700 New York City households are facing the likely loss of rental assistance and a potential return to homelessness after the Trump administration announced a pandemic-era aid program was nearly out of cash.
Child care vouchers for low-income families have been a lifeline amid the city’s affordability crisis. They could vanish unless state lawmakers move quickly to fund the program.
Forest Hills Stadium defiantly pledged its summer concert season was going forward as planned — despite the city saying it couldn’t issue the permits needed for shows at the iconic venue.
Cait Conley, 39, an Army veteran and former national security official, announced that she is challenging Rep. Mike Lawler, a second-term Republican in a swing district in the suburbs north of New York City.
Conley entered the race with a tough-talking video that shows the combat veteran lifting weights and flipping a truck tire in a gym as she lays out her mission in running.
Conley, a Hudson Valley native who graduated from West Point in 2007 and served 16 years in the Army, is the third Democratic candidate to file papers to run for New York’s 17th Congressional District in 2026.
State Sen. Dan Stec has won the support of New York’s Conservative Party in his bid to succeed U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, an outcome that is expected to give him a lot of momentum in a crowded field of congressional hopefuls.
Former Northville girls’ basketball coach Jim Zullo has been issued an appearance ticket for harassment in the second degree stemming from the incident in which he pulled on the ponytail of senior player following Northville’s loss to La Fargeville.
A state Supreme Court justice denied a dismissal motion and set an April hearing in the case of the founder of the 518 Foodies Facebook group suing the owners of the Latham restaurant Taste of Italy for defamation, product disparagement and civil assault.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
