Nick Kossmann has his work cut out for him.
He’s Schoharie County’s new Agriculture Development specialist.
Tuesday, County Administrator Steve Wilson introduced Mr. Kossmann to supervisors’ Ag Committee.
He left with a long to-do list, starting with his own plans to put together a report on the State of Agriculture in Schoharie County.
“To see where we are and where we should go,” he said.
Mr. Kossmann earned a BS in Ag Business from SUNY Cobleskill, where he also taught as an adjunct.
He also worked for Farm Family and USDA and spent a stint in New Zealand working on one of that country’s largest robotic farms.
Mr. Kossmann follows now-Gilboa Supervisor Alicia Terry in his job and he’s been spending his first month going through files and identifying what’s changed in agriculture—and what’s not.
One of the things that’s changed is that the number of dairy farms has dropped significantly since the last national ag census in 2017.
That prompted Mr. Wilson to suggest there’s a need for something like the Fairweather Report for farming.
“Do we want to focus some of our economic development efforts on agriculture or ag support?” he asked, offering the idea of something like a John Deere R&D facility as a possible regional solution.
Because ag’s issues are regional—and national.
Dairy advocate Duane Spaulding said after Dairy Farmers of America’s purchase of the Amsterdam-based milk hauler Greene Trucking, he’s heard from a number of local farmers left scrambling to find someone to pick up their milk.
DFA will buy non-members’ milk, he said—they just won’t haul it. And everyone’s having trouble finding truck drivers.
While there’s nothing to stop those farmers from joining the member-owned DFA, Summit Supervisor Harold Vroman, a former dairy farmer, said dues are expensive.
Mr. Spaulding also called for changes to federal legislation that prices milk.
But be careful what you wish for, cautioned Ms. Terry; many of those who’d be writing that legislation have no experience with “boots on the ground” farming and the changes could do more harm than good.
Supervisors suggested reaching out to State Ag Commissioner Richard Ball and legislators for help and advice.
“Locally, we should start from the bottom up, not from the top down,” said Ag Committee chair Wes Laraway of Middleburgh.
That, he said, is a job for Mr. Kossmann.