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After seven years, the Lansing Town Board accepted the Agriculture And Farmland Protection Plan Wednesday.  The plan was approved in a 5-0 vote after a public hearing before the Board.  While two residents spoke against the plan, most urged board approval.  The main elements of the plan are recommendations to form an Agriculture Committee that will work on ways to implement the plan in the future, and to create a new Agriculture Zone that would replace the current Rural Agriculture zone across much of the northern portion of the Town.

"It's an opportunity to look at what is going on in agriculture," said Cornell Cooperative Extension Agriculture Program Leader Monika Roth.  "We sent the document to the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets.  The grants manager, John Brennan,  just sent us a letter that said that to date they have received over 100 planning grants that were approved by the commissioner and are in various stages of completion.  He said, 'the Lansing plan goes above and beyond the basic requirements and helps the reader understand the dynamic nature of agriculture in the community.  Additionally the plan illustrates what the Town can do to protect a variety of resources, land and water, needed to maintain a viable ag industry.'  He says he feels this is the best one written so far in New York State.  I am very pleased to have that response from him."

Lansing farms generate almost one-third of the $67 million total farm product sales in the Tompkins County, making it the most vital farming community in the county.  The town has over 17,000 acres of  farmland that provides over 100 jobs, at least 40 of them full time, with a combined payroll of at least $3 million.  About $17 million of that comes from dairy farms.  8,472 acres in Lansing are farmed by owners, and an additional 8,570 acres are leased.  While most speakers in the public hearing and an earlier public hearing said they are in favor of the plan, two were flatly against it.

Former Lansing Supervisor Jennine Kirby said, "I'm certainly not for this plan in its current form," she said.  "We spent decades putting forth a plan that would be acceptable to the whole town back when I was Supervisor.  I see no need to change it.  There's a big difference between a true family farm and the industrial farms that require a lot of outside help, a lot of them from south of the border."

Lansingville Road resident Doug Baird spoke at length against the plan, saying that it excludes rural residents who are not farmers.  He accused town officials of viewing those residents as 'less important' than larger agricultural interests within the Town.  He said he is drawing up a Title 6 Environmental Justice complaint, and asked townspeople to help him implement other actions he plans to take against the Township.

"This ag plan has 'deal' written all over it," Baird charged.  "A deal between big ag interests, developers and South Lansing's affluent suburban and lakeshore community.   Hundred of acres of lakeshore property within the ag district will be given up for development and miles of road frontage with municipal water along 34B, much of it actively farmed, will be left unprotected in ag zone proposal.  This is just a sample of how the ag planners have greased the wheels of approval."

Baird said that he was the author of an anonymous letter that was distributed in parts of Lansing, and defended its contents, downplaying the fact that he had not signed it.  But local farmer and Ag Plan Committee member Lin Davidson said the letter contained many inaccuracies and partial truths.  Davidson refuted a number of claims in Baird's letter.

"It's important that residents receive factual information about this topic," Davidson said.  "There are statements in the letter that deserve clarification and active response."

A couple of other speakers raised concerns about the plan, but it turned out they had not read it, or had only read parts of it.  The Plan is available for download on the Town Web site.  Supervisor Kathy Miller urged them to read it in full, saying it would answer the questions they raised.  A number of residents, many of them farmers, urged the board to accept the plan.

"I applaud the work the committee has done," said former Councilwoman Katrina Binkewicz, who also refuted points maid in Baird's letter.  "The ag plan is really just guidance for the Town Board to take farmers seriously, and to take farming seriously in the community and preserve it."

Now that it has been accepted by the Town Board the plan will be submitted for approval by the NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets.  Roth urged the Board to form an Agriculture Committee shortly after receiving state approval that she said would be the 'shepherd of what happens next'.

"The plan is a plan," said Roth.  "It's a set of recommendations.  Nothing in there is set in stone as law.  it is something that an agriculture committee, should you choose to appoint one,can take as a guidance document, further work on it -- and hopefully include some of the farmers who are here tonight to be engaged on a committee and provide input -- to recommendations that would strengthen and support agriculture in the future of the Town.  It's not an end.  It's a beginning."

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