For well over a century, agriculture was the number one business in Steuben County and its neighbors. Far fewer people are engaged today, but what IS the current (and future) state of local agriculture?
*Farms in our area went back to scrub and forest as agriculture dwindled in the 20th century, and the deer came back as the trees grew up. Much of our forest is actually very young – it’s grown up since the Great Depression, or even since the Second World War; starting in the 1950s and 60s, farms went out of cultivation in huge numbers. This is also when the Amish and Old Order Mennonites started coming in. They WANTED small farms that could be operated by a family, and bought land that otherwise had no takers.
*Another significant change took place in the grape and wine sector. Men such as Charles Fournier and Konstantin Frank had pioneered bringing in European strains and producing more premium wines. Along with that specialization, in 1976 Governor Hugh Carey signed a boutique winery act. If you produced at least 51% of your own wine, and kept output under a certain amount each year, you could sell directly to the public, operate a tasting room, pay reduced taxes and fees. As we know, the number of operations has boomed.
*So as we are well into the third century of European-style farming in Steuben County, what do we see? Those marvelous muck lands in the northwest continue to be very productive. The uplands are rather limited in large-scale farming, but Amish and Old Order communities preserve the family farm, often using draft animals. Maple production, often selling raw sap, is important in the southwest. Lumbering has continued on small scale, but dairy has dwindled almost to nothing, though the Dairy Festival continues.
*Only three or four high schools have F.F.A. programs. M. J. Ward closed and dismantled the last grain elevator in Steuben County a few years back, and has now gone completely out of business. The County Fair continues, and while it still has a large agricultural component, it must always appeal to the NON-farm folks to keep the fair running. Interestingly, Steuben County has become one of New York’s most significant hunting areas – number one county in deer take, top five in turkey – BECAUSE so many farms have gone out. Hunting, much of it by out-of-county visitors, pumps a tremendous amount into our economy.
*Besides the small family farms of the conservative anabaptists, and besides the ongoing productive use of the mucklands, there are two possible portents for the future. One is the proliferation of small farmer’s markets, which ties in with the local-food movement and the direct-to-consumer movement, particularly C.S.A’s, such as that operated by the Peace Weavers in Wheeler.
*Secondly, such changes as the transition of Blue Gill Farms, operated by the Weaver family on Mitchellsville Road in Bath. Long a substantial dairy operation, Blue Gill moved out of that ten years back or so. Now they raise hogs for Hatfield, with the pig barns in the hills of Wheeler while they grow much of the feed on the flats in Bath.
*And around Keuka Lake, of course, the story is grapes. Throughout several millennia of human history, steep, inaccessible, or unproductive land has been reserved for grapes and graveyards. Grapes, it was said in the 1870s, were the first thing Pulteney folks ever found to justify the taxes on their land. The Steuben County shield bears a picture of a wheat sheaf. In 1900 it might have been a milk can, and in the 1930s a bushel of potatoes. If the shield were being created today, it might well bear a bunch of grapes!
*At 4 PM Friday, March 1, I’ll be doing a free presentation, “From Wheat to Grapes: The Steuben Farming Story” at Bath Fire Hall, as part of Steuben County Historical Society’s Winter Lecture Series. We hope to see you there!