SAVE THE DATE for the Hudson Valley Food System Coalition's FARM BILL 101
The Hudson Valley Food System Coalition is excited to invite you to join us in person for the first in a series of sessions on the upcoming 2023 Farm Bill.
Wednesday, January 18, 2023
5:30 pm - 7:30 pm
The Barns at the Vassar Environmental Cooperative
50 Vassar Farm Lane, Poughkeepsie, NY 12603
The $428 billion Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (Pub. L. 115-334), more commonly referred to as the 2018 Farm Bill, is set to expire on Sept. 30, 2023. The Farm Bill impacts virtually every part of the agriculture sector covering programs such as crop insurance for farmers, healthy food access for low-income families, beginning farmer training, support for sustainable farming practices, and much more.
The Farm Bill lays the groundwork for our food and farming systems and a lot has changed since the bill’s last iteration in 2018. This series of sessions will act as a catalyst for a networked impact approach to ensuring a fair, equitable Farm Bill that reflects the needs of our Hudson Valley foodshed.
Farm Bill 101 will start with the basics. The what, who, and how with featured panelists:
Maire Ullrich, MBA, Agriculture Program Leader, Eastern New York Commercial Horticulture Team, Cornell Hemp Program, Cornell Cooperative Extension Orange County.
Elizabeth Higgins, Extension Specialist, Ag Business Management and Production Economics, Cornell Cooperative Extension | Eastern NY Commercial Horticulture.
Chris Pawelski, Pawelski Farms, Farmroot.
We hope you’ll join us!
Register to attend and receive more information as we get closer to the date for free through the button below, and as always, please do share this invitation with other folks in your network.
Panelist Bios:
Maire Ullrich is a “home-grown” Orange County resident. She is in her 10th year as Agriculture Program Leader for Cornell Cooperative Extension. Before that, for 17 years, she was the Vegetable Crops Educator and, before that, the IPM (Integrated Pest Management) Coordinator. She obtained her Bachelor’s of Science in General Agriculture from Cornell University in 1992. She received her M.B.A. from SUNY New Paltz in 2005. Her responsibilities include helping farmers produce and market their products and that includes helping them manage a myriad of regulations and programs that oversee or assist in the production and processing of food.
Elizabeth Higgins is an Extension Associate in Production Economics and Farm Business Management with the Eastern NY Commercial Horticulture Team at Cornell Cooperative Extension. She has worked in the Cornell Cooperative Extension system for the past 16 years in a variety of food, environmental conservation, and farm production roles. From 1994-2001 she worked in Washington, DC starting as a Farm Bill policy analyst for the 1995 Farm Bill and as a food systems policy analyst for several sustainable agriculture non-profits, including the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, the Midwest Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (MSAWG), the Wallace Institute for Alternative Agriculture and the Wallace Center at Winrock. She also worked as a Special Assistant to Kathleen Merrigan at USDA AMS on the Final Rule of the National Organic Standards Act. She lives in Kingston, NY with her husband, Andrew.
Christopher Pawelski, M.A. University of Iowa, Major: Communication Studies, Minor: Film Studies (1990) B.A. SUNY Cortland, Communication Studies—Radio/Television, Summa Cum Laude, Phi Kappa Phi (1988), has been farming since he was old enough to run behind a harvester picking up stray onions. For nearly 25 years he’s been a staunch advocate for farmers in the Hudson Valley helping to shape and direct agricultural policy and legislation in the areas of trade, labor, food waste/recovery, conservation programs, flood control, pesticide usage & application, crop insurance, and disaster aid.
Chris’s advocacy efforts on the federal level have benefited numerous farmers. He successfully lobbied for a $10 million earmark to aid Orange County onion farmers that was part of the 2002 Farm Bill. He worked with legislators and the USDA to develop a crop insurance pilot program that was implemented within one year of its approval (almost unheard of in the industry). He has presented testimony on Capitol Hill before the United States Senate Agriculture Committee. He was interviewed by the Senate Democrat Policy Committee concerning the potential effects of the 2002 Farm Bill. Working with then-Rep. John Hall, Chris developed legislation for a new soil conservation program for muck farms called the Conservation on Muck Soils (COMS) program. It was a $50 million dollars a year or $250 million dollars over 5 years program that passed in the House version of the 2008 Farm Bill. Though it did not survive the final conference committee negotiations it continues to be considered for subsequent Farm Bills. Most recently Chris was interviewed by the United States Department of Justice on the recent Bayer-Monsanto merger.
At the New York State level, he has assisted in securing funding for the benefit of farmers and farm workers. He successfully lobbied for the return of $50,000 in onion research funding in the New York State FY19 budget, increased to $70,000 in the FY20 budget, and successfully lobbied for an FY19 grant to help fund the Warwick Area Migrant Committee summer program for migrant farmworker children.
Chris regularly appears in and/or serves as a background source on agricultural policy and legislation in numerous media outlets.