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State Agriculture & Markets Commissioner Patrick Hooker was in Homer yesterday to announce a record $35 million in funding has been allocated to buy up the development rights from New York farmers to insure that farmland is protected throughout the state.  Bensvue Farm in Lansingville was slated to receive $1.3 million from the program, and now will receive an additional $252,788 supplemental award.  "This round of farmland protection money is the largest amount of money for the greatest amount of acres that this program has ever put forward in its 11 year history," Hooker told an audience that packed into a milking barn at McMahon's E-Z Acres.  "$28 million came from the partnership that the Governor and the legislature have on the Environmental Protection Fund.  $7 million dollars are added today from projects that did not go forward that were announced in years past."

The $35 million will protect 13,299 acres of active farmland.  There are 35 farms of all sizes, all commodities, ten of which have been in operation for more than 100 years here in the State of New York.  The money is going toward 31 total projects spread over 22 counties.  Seven of those municipalities or counties are first time award recipients.

Bensvue Farm is the second Lansing farm to benefit from the program.  It was begun in 1946 and this year a third generation of Bensons took over the farm.  It has 64% high quality soils with 4,000 feet of frontage along Salmon Creek, and has been named a 'Lake Friendly Farm' by the Cayuga Lake Watershed Network.

The idea is that the state purchases development rights from farmers, insuring that the properties will be used for farming in perpetuity.  The families still own their farms, but have sold the right to develop the land to the state.  The program encourages farm families to pass the land on through generations.  North Lansing's Houser Farm was included in an earlier round of the program.  This year Bensvue Farm and part of Dryden's Jerry Dell Farm were accepted into the program.  Between the Houser and Benson farms, nearly 1,400 acres of Lansing farm land will be preserved.

"It goes along with what the Town Board has always talked about in my tenure," says Town Supervisor Steve Farkas.  "We really need to keep development in the South end of the town and protect our farmlands in the northern part as long as we possibly can."


Hooker was joined by representatives from the American Farmland Trust, the Open Space Institute, New York Ag Land Trust, as well as State and local legislators, including Senator Dave Valesky, Assemblyman Gary Finch.

Hooker says that there are three basic criteria that qualifies a farm for the program.  These include the viability of the farmland and the quality of its soil, development pressure from neighboring cities and towns, and environmental benefits that are gained by keeping the land for farming use.  "The farmland preservation that has occurred in these valleys has occurred because there are people who are forward thinking, who can see the economic opportunities at hand, and see both the lifestyle and the profitability in agriculture, versus turning it into housing," he said.

"I think it's a great accomplishment for the town," Farkas says.  "We didn't think twice when it came up.  Everybody bought right into it.  That really says a lot about where our commitment is to the farm community."

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