Farmers are facing a perfect storm of challenges from inflation, supply shortages and higher labor costs.
“It’s just hard to keep up with what this is all going to do to the bottom line,” said Tom Borden, who operates a dairy farm and apple orchard in Easton.
The war in Ukraine creates more uncertainty, said Moreau Supervisor Todd Kusnierz, a farmer who formerly was an adviser to the state Senate Agriculture Committee.
“It’s going to be a wildcard as to where all that will come out at the bottom line,” he said.
The uncertainly comes after a relatively more stable agricultural economy in recent years.
Between 2014 and 2019, the agriculture economy grew by 36%, and agriculture employment increased by 50%, Kusnierz said.
Farmers are nervous about the pendulum swinging the other way.
Among these challenges, meanwhile, another storm cloud threatens.
The state Farm Laborers Wage Board voted 2 to 1 in January to recommend that the state Labor Department reduce the threshold for overtime pay from 60 hours per week to 40 hours per week, over a 10-year period.
The dissenting vote came from a representative of the New York Farm Bureau.
The threshold had been 60 hours since Jan. 1, 2020.
Before that, overtime pay was not required for farmworkers in New York.
Under the recommendation, the threshold would be reduced to 56 hours starting Jan. 1, 2024, and be reduced in subsequent biannual increments.
The proposed change would increase farm labor costs by about 17%, according to Farm...
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