New York City has invested considerably to protect lands surrounding its upstate reservoirs to secure its drinking water supply--with great results. Now Mayor Bill de Blasio has a unique opportunity to provide city residents with significant health, economic and quality-of-life benefits by leveraging ongoing efforts to secure the supply of fresh, local food by conserving farmland within its regional "foodshed."
In 2013 Scenic Hudson, the environmental organization and land trust based in New York's Hudson River Valley, released a Foodshed Conservation Plan. It provides an innovative blueprint for securing farmland critical for supplying fresh, local food to consumers throughout this 11-county region as well as to New York City's 8.4 million residents, in total nearly half of the state's population. You can read details about the plan--a first of its kind, data-driven strategy to conserve a metropolitan area's foodshed--in my previous blog.
Over the last two years, the plan has received considerable attention from national and local media and significant buy-in from public officials, food and hunger advocates, chefs and restaurateurs, philanthropies and private investors. Most important, it has brought land trusts and farm families together to conserve some of the valley's most productive agricultural lands. By paying farmers a portion of their land's value to ensure its permanent protection, we're providing them with capital to invest in and expand their operations and making the land more affordable for the next generation of farmers.
A great example of the plan's success is the Copake Agricultural Center (CAC). Last year Scenic Hudson and the Columbia Land Conservancy protected 189 acres that support this pioneering project by Northeast Farm Access, LLC. This mission-driven investment group purchases farmland to lease and later resell to farmers, with the aim of providing them with long-term, affordable land tenure. Three young families leasing land at the CAC already are supplying fresh produce to consumers throughout the region via farmers markets and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) operations.
Many of the farms protected through the Foodshed Plan (including nearly 30 by Scenic Hudson) supply vegetables, meat and dairy products to New York City greenmarkets, CSAs, food pantries and restaurants. For this reason, it's not only been endorsed by 25 city food, environmental and planning groups but 24 of its leading chefs and restaurateurs, including Lidia Bastianich, Mario Batali, Bill Telepan and Jean-Georges Vongerichten.
The importance--and urgency--of carrying out the plan is borne out by two recent statistics:
First, according to a new study by University of California Engineering Professor Elliott Campbell, New York City could feed 30 percent of its population with food produced within 100 miles.
Second, 60 percent of New York's farmers will reach retirement age in the coming decade.
Professor Campbell's research confirms the Foodshed Plan's analysis: That the Hudson Valley has the agricultural land--some 730,000 acres--to meet a major portion of New York City's fresh-food needs. Yet the gap between the city's demand for regionally produced food and the amount of food supplied is remarkably wide--estimated at nearly $1 billion.
As for the second statistic, it means considerable agricultural acreage likely will change hands in the near future. Real estate market dynamics always favor development over agriculture, which is the prime reason New York State loses a farm every three and a half days. In the Hudson Valley, farmland protection groups and farm families have done a remarkable job partnering to conserve 80,000 acres--but nearly 90 percent of the region's high-quality soils remains at risk from subdivisions and strip malls.
The bottom line: The time is ripe to ramp up the Foodshed Plan. Earlier this year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state Legislature threw their weight behind it by budgeting $20 million to conserve Hudson Valley farms. This milestone commitment, together with other public and private support, provide a substantial down payment, which now offers New York City a unique opportunity to step up and help get the job done.
The good news is that progress is being made. Fourteen City Council members, led by Dan Garodnick and Donovan Richards, support a 10-year commitment of $5 million per year to protect regional farmland. Such an investment reflects a goal of Mayor Bill de Blasio's #OneNYC plan for the city's future. In addition to improving health and alleviating hunger, the mayor's plan enumerates additional benefits the city would derive from increasing regional food supplies--lowering its carbon footprint, making its food system more resilient to climate change, and creating jobs. It then declares: "We will work with the State to conserve the region's agricultural land for farming."
New York City already has the mechanism to do this. In the same way it contracts with a not-for-profit to protect its watershed, it can fund land trust transactions with farm families to make sure the farmland within its foodshed remains available for productive agriculture. And in doing so, it will leverage substantial third-party financial support.
New York City has a lot to gain--including serving as a national model--and nothing to lose by taking this bold and forward-thinking step.