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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAAC 2024-05-08AAC 2024-05-08 Approved Page 1 of 4 AGRICULTURE ADVISORY COMMITTEE May 08, 2024 In-Person Approved July 10, 2024 Present: Evan Carpenter (chair), Doug Antczak, Austin Beck, Steve Foote, Kim LaMotte Absent: Brian Magee Liaisons: Craig Schutt (Conservation Board), Graham Savio (Cornell Cooperative Extension) Staff: Loren Sparling (Deputy Town Clerk) The meeting was called to order at 7:36 p.m. Announcements D Antczak was introduced and welcomed as the newest Committee member. He is a soon-to-be retired Cornell professor who has been breeding horses for 50 years for his research. One of his horses was even selected to be the genetic donor for the Horse Genome Project. Review and Approval of Minutes from March 13, 2024 On motion made by K LaMotte, seconded by S Foote, the minutes of March 13, 2024, were unanimously approved as written. Zoning Consultant The consultant hired to update the Town’s zoning law would like to meet with E Carpenter and K LaMotte (as spokespersons for the Committee) before June 7. E Carpenter explained that the Town of Dryden is initiating a zoning review project and has recently hired a planning consultant, Nan Stolzenburg with Community Planning & Environmental Associates, to help with the first phase, which will be a review of the zoning and subdivision laws to evaluate their consistency with the Town’s comprehensive and other plans. Nan will be conducting several interviews with various people in the Town over the next month or two. The Planning Board met recently and identified us (E Carpenter and K LaMotte, as Committee leads) as someone who could provide her with valuable information and insight. They hope we agree to a 35-40 minute interview via a Zoom call with Nan. If we are agreeable, could we consult each other and send three available convenient times over the next month (until June 7) that we both could/would be available for that Zoom call between 7am and 6pm. Nan will review, choose one of those dates/times, set up a Zoom call, and confirm with us if a conference call could be set up. E Carpenter hoped to gather the concerns of other Committee members before speaking with N Stolzenburg. Committee members recalled that they had devoted two meetings last year (9/13/23 and 11/8/23) to resolving the recommendations made in the Agriculture and Farmland Protection Plan with the definitions currently being used in Dryden’s Zoning Law. Based on these discussions, they provided the Planning Board, as manager of the update process, with a summary document (dated 11/28/23) that listed their final recommendations on the matter, specifically regarding the definitions of “agricultural tourism / agritourism,” “farmworker housing,” “farm market,” and “commercial horse-boarding operation.” A Beck suggested that this summary document be sent to N Stolzenburg to inform her of the Committee’s concerns. Solar Projects on Morris Rd and Caswell Rd AAC 2024-05-08 Approved Page 2 of 4 E Carpenter was asked by Ray Burger, Director of Planning, to solicit input from the Committee on two new solar projects proposed for the Town, one on Morris Rd and one atop the Caswell Rd dump. R Burger would like the Committee to look at the proposed plans to see how solar would fit in with the surroundings. A Beck thought the Caswell site, which comprises approximately 100 acres of land, would be ideal for solar; E Carpenter thought the same. The dump has been closed since 1985, when it was covered and sealed. As a result, piers cannot be pounded into the site (so as to keep the protective membrane intact), but padding can be laid, and one can build up from that. It is a site that cannot be used for anything else; it is out in the middle of nowhere and unseen. C Schutt had heard that what is being proposed for Caswell is twice as big as the solar site adjacent to Willow Glen. He knows that there is a wetland on the Caswell site that the solar company will have to deal with. The Planning Board had a lot of questions after the project was initially presented to them; the company is supposed to return to the Planning Board soon to address these concerns. Afterwards, the Town Board will mull it over. Because of the length of time it is being considered (several months), Committee members have the opportunity to review the plans in order to formulate and submit opinions on the project. A Beck related that the company wants to run their primary line through his property and are working with him to that end. The line will be placed underground; if plans call for the line to be placed overhead, A Beck will not sign the agreement. Regarding why all the interconnections for past solar projects in Dryden have been overhead, E Carpenter explained that NYSEG does not keep any inventory for repairing underground projects nor are their linemen trained to do so. They know that this is something they have to do, but they just haven’t done it yet. He noted to A Beck that where the underground lines come to the interconnection, there will be lots of cement boxes for junctions, so make sure they are off to the side of the field. Cornell Cooperative Extension – Tompkins County Agriculture Staff Presentation G Savio introduced himself as the Agriculture & Horticulture Issue Leader for Cornell Cooperative Extension, Tompkins County (CCE-TC); his predecessor in this role was Monika Roth, who had helped in the creation of the Town of Dryden’s Agriculture and Farmland Protection Plan (2018). CCE-TC has a team of four people (in addition to himself) doing agricultural work, as well as a horticulture team whose focus is more on gardening support (Master Gardener volunteers, composting program) and an educator who divides their time between horticulture and ag marketing support (farmers markets). Aly Trombitas, Agriculture & Horticulture Educator, does farmland support and is the point person for farmers markets. She can answer such questions as where can pigs, local corn, and Thanksgiving turkeys be purchased. CCE-TC has a food systems person who has been working on the Tompkins Food Future initiative, the purpose of which is to look at the county’s food system from a soil-to-soil perspective (how are farmers accessing farmland, how are they paying for farmland, how are they growing their food, how are they marketing their food, how is the food being processed, how is it being sold, how is it being transported, how is it being composted). The intent is to highlight areas where resources and attention might need to go from a systems perspective. AAC 2024-05-08 Approved Page 3 of 4 Gabe Smith, Agroforestry Educator, focuses on the intentional integration of tree crops (orchard crops, nut crops, timber crops) and other subtypes of agriculture. Silvopasture and alley cropping would fall under his purview. As an example, CCE-TC is tracking Ulysses, who will probably be planting chestnut/hazelnut trees in small grain fields; in this setup, the farmer will be farming the small grain and someone else will be managing the trees that are planted in rows (with 100’ centers) in those fields. E Carpenter offered the idea that nut farms be placed around solar projects as opposed to trees such as blue spruce. If you have an orchard of apple or hazelnut trees, there will be enough branches to obscure the view of the panels from the roadways, even during the wintertime. Hazelnuts do not grow tall, and most apple trees are pruned to stay short. In regard to interconnected pole yards, E Carpenter suggested the use of chestnuts. They grow taller and can provide more shade. The only interconnection in Dryden that cannot be seen is the one near Willow Glen, and that is because it was placed in a gully with lots of brush growing up on the sides. To have such small orchards scattered about town (rather than concentrated in one spot) might be a good thing if talking about blights. G Savio added that the money given to the farmer for use of the land would make this even more desirable to undertake. Jenna DeRario is CCE-TC’s Payment for Ecosystem Services Educator. This is a PILOT program that started a few years ago. It measures the ecosystem services that come off of farmland and figures out how to pay the farmer for these ecosystem services (e.g., carbon sequestration both in soils and above ground, water holding capacity in the soil and resultant flood/drought mitigation, runoff mitigation [reduced nitrogen and phosphorus], and biodiversity). The thinking behind this program is that farmers provide services to the broader community, and they should be compensated for that. When asked who funds the carbon sequestration efforts, G Savio responded that it is often a corporate actor. As an example, American Airlines could pay farmland owners to sequester carbon so as to offset the amount of carbon that they are releasing and become net- zero in the process. New York State has also laid out in its Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (2019) its plans to have the state be net-zero by 2050. The Act acknowledges that emissions can be reduced by 85%. The remaining 15%, however, cannot reasonably be eliminated. Illustrating this last point, G Savio used the example of Corning Glass. Glass production needs a ton of heat that cannot reasonably be done with electricity; instead of using massive amounts of hydro or solar, fossil fuels will continue to be utilized and offsets purchased, meaning that the State of New York would be another potential buyer. He added that the soil-based carbon market is in a lot of flux and there are no guarantees that it will be a thing in the long-term. Above-ground carbon seems much more certain; if a tree is planted, that tree is sequestering carbon every year. Crystal Buck is CCE-TC’s newest Farmland Protection & Ag Marketing Educator, focusing on farmland protection and farmland access. She is currently working with a few land trusts in the area on the state’s newly unveiled Farmland Protection Implementation Grants (FPIG) program, which provides a good amount of funding to pay for conservation easements on farmland. The complicating factor is that you need someone to hold the easement. Some towns hold the easement, if they have some capacity to monitor those easements and make sure the landowner is sticking to what is agreed to in the easement. For the most part, though, land trusts hold the easement. C Buck is working with the Finger Lakes Land Trust and the New York Agricultural Land Trust to submit an application in the next round of the FPIG program to secure funding AAC 2024-05-08 Approved Page 4 of 4 to pay for conservation easements on farms in Tompkins County. She collects and packages pre-application information from the farms, which she sends to the land trust, who then applies to the state for the funding that would be paid to the farmland owner. It’s a long, convoluted process. But anyone who is interested in the “purchase of development rights” (i.e., cash for development rights on land) should contact C Buck to work through the pre- application packet. These are due in August. G Savio also heard recently of a USDA grant program that will pay for farmworker housing. He will send Committee members a weblink to both this program and the FPIG program via email. In addition, he mentioned the semi-monthly newsletter of CCE-TC that is distributed via email. He will forward the most recent issue to Committee members, as well as a weblink to sign up for future issues. Update: Conservation Board The Conservation Board has had discussions on regenerative agriculture. These discussions were brought to the attention of the Committee at their March 2024 meeting, where it was concluded that Committee members individually were not opposed to the practice of regenerative agriculture, but as a group, were not going to favor one form of agriculture over another. C Schutt conveyed these sentiments to the Conservation Board at their last meeting. Committee members agreed that the idea behind regenerative agriculture is the integration of animals and no-till, so you’re going back to fully grazing and never turning soil over, and somehow integrating crops into that. Such agriculture is super small-scale and does not work on a large scale. A Beck added that people don’t like large-scale agriculture anymore, but they want to eat, so where’s the balance? Farmers are actually moving toward that balance, but people don’t realize what farmers are doing today in their efforts for sustainability and conservation. E Carpenter continued that farmers do not want to dump large amounts of phosphorus and nitrogen on their fields; pesticides are expensive. So farmers try to do as little as possible; they practice rotational management to break up the weed cycles, etc. The Becks inject manure directly into the ground; the largest organic farmer, though, is still spreading manure on the surface. In order to prevent runoff, direct manure injection is the way to go. There being no further business, on motion made by K LaMotte and seconded by S Foote, the meeting was adjourned at 8:32 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Loren Sparling Deputy Town Clerk