Although manufacturing and services sectors are increasingly important these days, agriculture, as the primary sector of every country, should be fundamental in regards to humans’ daily life. However, as we have learned from primary school, farming is not an easy business since it highly depends on sunshine, rainfall, and soil quality,  etc. Horribly, a sudden natural disaster could ruin all fruits of one harvest season. Farmers might suffer from revenue loss, and customers that regularly rely on those farming products might experience a rapid price increase, along with an economic slowdown within certain farmlands.

Human-induced greenhouse gas emissions has influenced the Adirondacks agriculture greatly during the 1940s and 1950s, and the Adirondacks experienced increased temperature in the atmosphere and unpredictable climate. As temperatures continue to rise, crops including “dairy, apples, potatoes, and cabbages” which are major components of agriculture will be difficult to grow in the Adirondacks (US Global Climate Change Research Program 2016). Other examples include the arrival of hurricane Irene in the High Peaks region, bringing torrential downpours, soil erosion, and flooding that largely destroyed Champlain Valley farms.

Apart from natural factors, market forces in the economy also makes Adirondacks agriculture hard to sustain. One typical tragedy is the “sour pricing system,” a totally unfair pricing system that is highly manipulated by major dairy corporations at the expense of the producers and customers. Take the case that happened between 1998 and 2007 as an instance. During that period, dairy farmers saw their share of the retail milk price drop by 25 percent, while retail prices increased by 40 percent (USDA NASS. Milk Production 2018). Thus, producers are worse off as the price they received decreased, and the customers are put at a disadvantage because the price they had to pay for products increased. Plus, as shown in the Chart 1 below, even ten years after 2007, though milk price dropped, the cost of production even increased to a point that was larger than the milk price, leading to net losses for most of the producers. As a result, a large portion of dairy producers went bankrupt and chose to leave the market.

Issues like unfair pricing systems are not limited to the dairy production industry, and a majority of agricultural production sectors experienced the same thing even till today.

Trying to save producers from this agricultural crisis caused by environmental variabilities and failure of economic mechanisms. So far, different types of organizations work together in a wish to make the agriculture of the Adirondacks continue to survive and become sustainable. For example, Farm Aid provides counsel and distributes emergency funds to farm families by hotline, and Governor Cuomo launched a $1.4 million dollar grant program to “mitigate the negative impact climate brings and increase the resiliency of farms throughout the Adirondacks”(New York State Governance, 2015).

Hopefully, in the future, local government can initiate a more standardized and fairer pricing system or grant more subsidies in support of the Adirondacks agriculture.

Works cited:

1. USDA NASS. Milk Production (February 2018) <https://release.nass.usda.gov/reports/mkpr0218.pdf.>

2. US Global Climate Change Research Program. Web. April 28. 2016. <https://hamiltoncs.org/forever-wild/farmerondacks/farmers-and-climate-change/>

3. “Governor Cuomo Announces Launch of $1.4 Million Climate Resilient Farming Grant program” New York State Governance. October 9th, 2015. Albany, NY. <https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-announces-launch-14-million-climate-resilient-farming-grant-program>