{"id":109224,"date":"2019-09-27T11:06:04","date_gmt":"2019-09-27T15:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=109224"},"modified":"2019-09-27T11:06:04","modified_gmt":"2019-09-27T15:06:04","slug":"new-york-fruit-and-vegetable-farmers-struggle-with-produce-pricing-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=109224","title":{"rendered":"New York fruit and vegetable farmers struggle with produce-pricing crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Gillibrand calls on USDA to investigate why prices paid\nto farmers aren\u2019t keeping up with the market<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a member of the Senate\nAgriculture Committee, called on the U.S. Department of Agriculture to\ninvestigate if fruit and vegetable farmers in New York and across the country\nare receiving fair prices for their produce. She said the prices of fruits and\nvegetables have increased for grocery store and wholesale buyers, but the\nprices that farmers receive for these same products has not kept up with these\nincreases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In some cases, she said, they\u2019ve even gone down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur New York farmers are facing a produce-pricing crisis.\nThroughout the state, fresh fruit and vegetable growers are hurting because the\nprices they get for their produce have stayed flat, and in some cases have even\ngone down, while the middlemen who move the produce from farmers to grocery\nstores and grocery store shoppers have seen the prices for the same produce\nincrease,\u201d said  Gillibrand, a member of the Senate Agriculture\nCommittee. \u201cDespite this, the USDA has not reviewed the fruit and\nvegetable industry in decades. We need to understand what is causing these\nunfair prices for our farmers, and I am calling on the USDA to complete a\ntop-to-bottom review of the fruit and vegetable industry so that we can help\nNew York\u2019s farmers better price their produce and plan for their future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are thousands of farms and orchards throughout New\nYork State, and New York consistently ranks as one of the top agricultural\nstates in the nation. However, data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics\nand National Agricultural Statistics Service shows that the prices paid to\nfarmers for many of New York\u2019s specialty crops \u2013 including apples, snap beans,\ncabbage, and broccoli \u2013 lag behand the terminal prices (the prices that the\nmiddle men who move these same crops from farms to grocery stores receive).\nFurthermore, structural changes to the fruit and vegetable industry in recent\ndecades, such as new farming technology, nutrition science, and consumer\nbehavior, have left farmers facing uncertainty as they feel that the market is\nnot transparent enough to know if the price they are offered for their produce\nis fair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The persistently low prices that farmers receive for their\nfruits and vegetables have led to the loss of small family farms, and in the\nlast five years alone, New York lost 11,000 acres of vegetable production. The\nUSDA has failed to conduct a full review of the fresh fruit and vegetable\nmarket for decades, and Gillibrand\u2019s push for a new study of this industry\nwould help identify which factors contribute to unfair prices for farmers and\nincrease transparency in the market. Gillibrand is also calling for the USDA to\nuse new technology to improve farm sales reporting to ensure that data is\nupdated in real time, increasing transparency for farmers and allowing them to\nsee if the prices they receive are fair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The full text of Senator Gillibrand\u2019s letter to the USDA can\nbe found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gillibrand calls on USDA to investigate why prices paid to farmers aren\u2019t keeping up with the market U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, called on the U.S. Department of Agriculture to investigate if fruit and vegetable farmers in New York and across the country are receiving fair prices for their produce. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98527,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23679,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agfarming","category-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=109224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/98527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=109224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=109224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=109224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}