Cornell Cooperative Extension

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by: Michael McGuire

When people think food, Cornell Cooperative Extension of Chenango County wants them to think local.

Cooperative officials say they’re not alone, either.

“There is tremendous excitement about local food, value-added food and food going directly from the producer to the consumer,” said CCE Director Keith Severson. “It’s something all of agriculture is trying to heighten in Chenango County.”

CCE was involved heavily in 2007 with marketing and delivering locally grown products through several different programs, including the Chenango County Guide to Locally Grown Products and the “Chenango Bounty at Your Door” delivery service.

“Eating local and eating healthy go hand-in-hand,” said CCE Assistant Jessica Jaramillo. “Hopefully what we do here facilitates that.”

Now that people are more aware and have better access to local products, Severson says the organization is kicking off a new program, “Eat Smart New York,” aimed at teaching people how to utilize farm fresh foods.

“This will be an opportunity to provide training to a targeted audience to assist them in learning about nutrition, the selection of food and the preparation of food,” said Severson. “It will teach people how to eat better food and live a better life, and to teach others the same.”

If people in general don’t start taking better care of themselves, obesity’s negative effects could ripple through society, Severson believes.

“We’ve known for a long time that obesity has been increasing,” he said. “That can have a large effect in our communities overall between medical and other costs related to health problems obesity creates. It will cost all people a lot more if others don’t eat healthy or practice healthy habits.”

The local foods emphasis also relates to promoting food security as problems with tainted foreign products become more prevalent.

“In terms of food security and knowing where food is coming from,” said CCE Horticulturist Rebecca Hargrave, “we’ve seen the demand for local products drastically increase. Hopefully we’re right on the cutting edge of that.”

A key to Cornell Cooperatives success in landing such programs has been full-time grant writer Kim Eaton, Severson said.

Before local products can be used, they have to be grown. So to further promote the ag industry to both younger and older generations, CCE has continued to ramp-up its education programs.

For starters, in 2008 the ag education department has created a livestock scholarship and livestock club as a way of promoting farming to area youth. Under the program, farmers donate animals to local kids to raise, and in-turn any offspring of those livestock are donated back to the program.

“There’s more than just dairy kids involved in this,” said 4-H Program Assistant Carol Loefstedt.

There’s also an ag mentoring program targeted at involving kids and teenagers in farming.

“For farmers, labor is the largest expense. This program teaches kids not only farm employment skills, but employment skills in general. It also hopefully sparks an interest in agriculture.” said Severson. “It really tries to merge those needs.”

For adults, Cooperative is again offering a host of skill development classes. It’s currently in the midst of its second round of large veterinarian skills courses.

“It saves farmers money by teaching them basic skills they can perform on their own and helps offset the lack of large animal vets in the area,” said Loefstedt.

CCE’s Ag Education Department plans to spend much more time in the fields this year as well.

“We want to be more involved with the farm – farm business, management. We’re going to make more farm visits and find out the needs in agriculture in Chenango County,” said Jaramillo.

Hargrave said her focus in 2008 will be on teaching people how to get back to basics and use skills that were commonplace in the 20th century that society has by-and-large forgotten.

“We’re really teaching the importance of getting back to developing and using older skills,” Hargrave said. In response, food preservation, master gardening, forestry, vegetable growing and green landscapes training seminars are all skills being offered in classrooms or on-line in this coming year.

For those interested, Cooperative will also be selling compost bins this spring.

Loefstedt said 4-H is also reaching further out into the community, setting up a number of after school clubs, including one at the Norwich YMCA and another for home-schooled kids focused on science and technology. Cooperative will also be using its master preservers to teach kids through 4-H the art of preserving food.

4-H is currently conducting an annual fundraiser, which wraps up Feb.14. In conjunction with Page Seeds of Greene, 4-H is selling “Fun Family Garden” kits as part of a statewide and soon to be nationwide drive.

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