The money will help markets improve infrastructure, boost marketing and add delivery options. The program, funded in Gov. Kathy Hochul’s budget, is intended to strengthen the state’s local food supply chain.

This round adds a requirement that recipients set aside part of their awards for sub-grants to farmers markets or vendors in their region through an open application process. Organizations can apply for between $100,000 and $200,000, explaining how they will distribute the funds to market locations.

A second track — offering $200,000 in direct grants to farmers markets without the sub-grant requirement — will be announced in the coming months. State officials say the two-tiered structure is meant to reach smaller markets.

“We learned during the pandemic that we needed to have a reliable food system right here at home,” Mr. Ball said in the Dec. 4 announcement. “Through three rounds of this program, we’ve seen progress on projects that are helping our farmers and producers reach more consumers.”

The Department of Agriculture and Markets supports more than 400 farmers markets, 250 farm stands and 10 mobile market operators statewide. Round 3 awards, totaling more than $1.12 million, were announced earlier this year.

Applications are due by Feb. 4, 2026, at 3 p.m. A webinar about the program is scheduled for Thursday, Dec. 11, at 12:30 p.m. More information is available on the department’s website.

The grant program is part of broader state investments in agriculture, including Nourish New York, the 30% New York State Initiative for school meals and the Regional School Food Infrastructure Grant Program, which will provide $50 million over five years for regional cooking facilities.

To find out eligibility criteria and how to apply, click here.

The post NYS announces $500K grant pool to support farmers markets appeared first on Riverhead News Review.

The award recognizes commitment to organic and biodynamic farming practices and land preservation. The Farrs accepted the award on March 15 at the Scully House, home of the Seatuck Environmental Association, in Central Islip.

The Farrs’ Calverton farm has been in operation since 1985 and was the first on Long Island to be certified organic in 1990. Originally a 60-acre potato farm, the couple produced herbs, vegetables, and fruits grown under biodynamic principles — a regenerative method of agriculture that uses various herbal and mineral additives for compost and application and follows a planting and harvesting calendar based on lunar cycles.

“No chemicals have been used on the farm since 1985,” says Mr. Farr.

In 2005, the Farrs planted 8.5 acres of Bordeaux grape varieties — Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Malbec, and Petit Verdot — creating Long Island’s only certified organic vineyard. After years of selling their organic grapes to some of the region’s top winemakers, the Farrs now work with veteran North Fork winemaker Greg Gove to make their own wine at Premium Wine Group in Mattituck, a “custom crush” facility that offers a way for smaller vineyards to make and bottle wine without the large expense of production equipment.

Equally important to the Farrs’ agricultural philosophy is land preservation. The couple has sold the development rights on their 60 acres to Suffolk County’s Farmland Development Rights program and to the Town of Riverhead, ensuring that their property will be permanently preserved for agricultural use.

“The award is given to a person or persons that have done something exemplary for the improvement of Long Island air, land, or water — a leader that strives to protect our planet,” said Ann Aurelio of the Sierra Club Long Island.

The Sierra Club is a nonprofit organization that is the United States’ longest running volunteer-driven environmental organization whose purpose is to “explore, enjoy and protect the planet … by educating the public and influencing public policy decisions — legislative, legal, and electoral.”

The group also recognized that the Farrs’ commitment to chemical-free agriculture has helped protect the Island’s fragile aquifer system.

Farrm Wine opens for the season on April 3 and offers a personalized vineyard tour and wine tastings on the deck of the Farrs’ home, which overlooks the property. The Farrs host many events open to the public during the season, such as sheep shearing, grape harvesting, and live music.

Farrm Wine (156 Youngs Ave., Calverton, 631-369-8237, farrmwine.com) will be open from Thursday to Sunday from noon to 5 p.m.; reservations are recommended. To book, call or email rfarr@optonline.net.

The post Farrm Wine honored with Environmentalist of the Year award appeared first on Riverhead News Review.

Their idea was to cultivate  a variety of vegetables and sell them directly to restaurants. In doing so, they were early pioneers in what later became known as the farm-to-table movement. 

Satur Farms, as they called their business, filled a particular niche and soon the couple was leasing other farmland on the North Fork and selling leafy greens to places like Whole Foods, King Kullen and FreshDirect. Their brand become very well known, anchored as it was to the North Fork’s rich soil.

Today, nearly three decades after they planted their first crops on their Cutchogue farm, the future of their business is uncertain. The large building they leased in Calverton as a washing, processing, packaging and distribution facility is being shuttered because the rent has skyrocketed, Ms. Satur said.

“We can’t afford that increase,” she said. “It’s too steep for our operation.”

On top of that, their future use of 140 acres in Cutchogue that are crucial to their successful leafy green business is up in the air. The couple’s lease on the land ends in April, and the land’s owner, the Soloviev Group, has not told them if it will be extended. 

“We don’t comment on the status of leases between the Soloviev Group and external businesses”,” Hayden Soloviev, a spokesperson for the family, said, He declined to address a question about whether the group will seek town approvals for housing development of that parcel.

In an interview last week at the Calverton facility, both Ms. Satur and Mr. Muller said the 140 acres in Cutchogue is essential to their operation. “We need a certain critical mass of land in order to maintain the level of business we have,” Mr. Muller said.

On the day of the interview, crews were removing equipment from the building, which the couple said they would vacate on the last day in January. As for why they are leaving the facility, Ms. Satur said in a separate interview, “There are many reasons, but the main one is that the rent has almost tripled. We’ve contracted with another company, which will pack our greens.”

She said she is working with the New York State Department of Labor to find jobs for their 40 employees. “I’ve helped eight of them get new jobs so far with another distributor. There’s a worker shortage so the workers will be welcome elsewhere.”

Ms. Satur added that she and her husband are selling the washing and packing equipment at the processing facility. She declined to identify where the farm’s new packing facility is located.

In the interview, both Ms. Satur and Mr. Muller said they did not know if they would be allowed to continue to farm the 140 acres in Cutchogue owned by the Soloviev Group. They declined to speculate on the future of Satur Farms if that land was unavailable to farm. 

“We will cross the bridge when we come to it,” Mr. Muller said. “If we can’t continue there, we will adjust — we will pivot.” Ms. Satur  agreed with her husband, saying, “We will have to readjust.”

But both said that 140 acres, the largest part of the approximately 200 acres they have farm, is critical. 

Word that Satur is leaving the Calverton facility due to rising rent, and the uncertainty of their use of the 140 acres, comes just two weeks after the Peconic Land Trust was hailed for its purchase of 151 acres in the Oregon Road farm belt in Cutchogue and its sale of two parcels totaling 38 acres to two local growers.

Both Ms. Satur and Mr. Muller praised that sale, but said the parcels are too small and far too expensive, totaling in the millions of dollars. “For something like what we do to be successful,” she said, “we need larger parcels. Those would be too small.”

Rob Carpenter, the executive director of the Long Island Farm Bureau, praised Satur Farms as being one of the region’s best argricultural  operations. But he said the headwinds for that business , and many others, may bee too stiff to successfully navigate. 

“Whether it’s the high cost of production, rising rents, land prices, the regulations about processing and land use — it’s more and more difficult for agriculture here to continue to evolve,” he said. “But they built a really great business.”

Mr. Carpenter said the issue of land availability is not unique to Satur Farms. “There are fewer and fewer large parcels available to rent, and the prices are far too high to purchase for a farm business,” he said. “Maybe they (Satur Farms) could find 15 acres here, 20 acres there, but they need large, contiguous pieces and that’s harder and harder to find with all the development pressures.”

He cited other reasons — including rising state-mandated minimum wage increases and changes in overtime rules for farm workers — as contributing to the challenges impacting the North Fork’s historic farms.

In announcing the Peconic Land Trust’s purchase of the Cutchogue farmland, John Halsey, the Trust’s director, noted that soaring land prices — particularly on the South Fork — have made it extraordinarily difficult for existing farmers to acquire more land. North Fork prices are close behind. 

“There are people buying up land and the availability of land is diminishing,” he said. “Leasing land means you are not in control of your destiny; buying land and owning it takes care of that.”

Mr. Muller came to farming when he and his wife started Satur Farms in 1997 after he’d had an extraordinary career as a chef. He began work in Manhattan at Windows of the World. In 1985 he helped open Le Bernardin, which went on to receive four stars from The New York Times. In 1994, he was named executive chef at Lutece.

Three years after that, he and Ms. Satur donned work boots and began planting in Cutchogue.

additional reporting by
Deborah Wetzel

The post Closing of Satur Farms’ packaging plant another sign of challenges facing North Fork farmers appeared first on Riverhead News Review.

Normally at this time of year, apple farmers say there might be 300 bushels in cold storage. But this fall was not like those of previous years, with six weekends in a row of rain that kept the steady stream of apple pickers away from the Cut­ch­ogue farm and other North Fork farms selling their apples.

“There is a vast surplus of apples this year,” said Tom Wickham, as he and a visitor toured the farm in Mr. Wickham’s pickup truck. “The rains kept the apple pickers away, so we have a lot now in cold storage.”

While he said he is not certain yet of the financial fallout for apple farmers of the rainy weekends, he said it is possible this year the farm — which raises two dozen varieties of apples, from Mutsu to Empire to the crisp and juicy Rubyfrost — may see a loss. But Mr. Wickham’s optimism on his historic farm runs deep: the coming weekend was predicted to be classic fall weather, which brings out the apple pickers, sometimes by the busload.

“We will have a good weekend,” Mr. Wickham said.

Across New York State’s apple country, apple farmers have been hit hard by the rainy weekends, according to a recent story in The New York Times that focused on orchards in the Hudson River Valley. Some growers said weekend rains, one after another from September into October, cost them half of their autumn income. 

One Hudson Valley apple grower told The New York Times, “I’ve been farming since 1972, and this is the roughest fall I’ve ever seen.”

The Wickhams have been farming in Cut­ch­ogue considerably longer. Part of the family’s current farm dates to the mid-1850s; a previous line of Wickhams arrived in Cut­ch­ogue on a different tract of land in 1699.

Beginning in the late 1930s, and continuing into the 1940s and 1950s, the family began planting apple orchards, in part because potato farming on Long Island was beginning to disappear as suburbanization spread east. The family wanted new crops that would help them keep the farm active and business at their Main Road farm stand busy. In addition, New York State, through Cornell University, had an active apple research program that inspired new varieties, like the Empire — named after the Empire State — that farmers could then offer to the public.

This past weekend, many of the apple varieties grown on the Wickham farm were on display in the farm stand, along with pies and donuts. By Saturday morning, visitors began to arrive with the sunny promise of more apple pickers to come. For his part, Mr. Wickham mans a tractor that pulls pickers in a wagon to orchards on the east side of the farm ripe with apples.

Essentially, apple season comes at two different times on the Wickham farm: first, from late August into September; then from October — which is prime picking time — to the end of the season. Ten or 12 varieties are picked in the early season; another 10-12 in October. 

Some growers quoted in The New York Times story said they would try to extend the season into December in hopes of making up for fall losses. The Wickham farm stand traditionally closes before Christmas.

Historically, the farm’s apples are sold at the stand or by the U-pick crowd. That portion of the business has dropped off sharply in recent years due to worsening traffic conditions, with major chokepoints east of Cut­ch­ogue.

“People just can’t get east because of the traffic,” Mr. Wickham said.

Then the September-October weekend rains hit, making matters worse. “It’s been a dramatic drop-off,” he said. “The rain really hurt us.”

As Mr. Wickham toured the orchards with a visitor, he pointed out that some of the later varieties — such as Fuji and Rubyfrost — are still on the trees waiting on pickers to arrive. 

With his eye on the surplus, Mr. Wickham began looking for alternate markets for his apple crop. A major buyer this fall has been the Jericho Cider Mill in Nassau County. One day last week, Mr. Wickham drove one of the farm’s flatbed trucks packed with crates of barrels to the mill.

Another way of selling the surplus is to convert the apples to cider. On the day a visitor toured the farm, workers in another barn were processing apples and filling jugs with cider. The cider press on the farm dates to about 1907 and remains in use every fall.

In the lower section of the big barn, where potatoes were once stored, Mr. Wickham showed the visitor the cooler, where 1,100 bushels of apples are in cold storage in large wooden crates. He said he hoped many of them could be sold in the spring when the stand reopens.

Then his phone pinged. He was wanted at the stand to drive a group of pickers behind the tractor who had arrived to enjoy the sunny day.

The post After wet weekends, the apple farmers are hurting appeared first on Riverhead News Review.

They watch the docks and parking lots to see if they are littered with broken scallop shells dropped and picked over by gulls; a good sign. They scan the beaches after a strong wind to see if scallops have washed up; another good sign. 

This year — once again — the signs were not encouraging.

The bay scallop season, which started Monday in New York and runs through March, looks to be just as bad this year as it has been for the past four, which means the most reliable way to get a bay scallop dinner is to know a fisherman — and the most reliable way for a fisherman to make a living is to fish for something else.

On Friday afternoon at a town dock on Shelter Island, Mike Tehan was hosing down his lobster traps and putting away most of his fishing gear but planned to go out for scallops on opening day with a reporter and photographer. Mike’s father, John Tehan, was going to miss opening day this year and, for the first time in years, his uncle, Chris Tehan, had decided not renew his commercial scallop license.

Monday at sunrise (6:26 a.m.), the Clark family’s boats were mostly on the water, and the temperature at Congdon Creek was 44 degrees, a lot chillier than last year’s 58 degrees, but still pretty warm for a fall day, especially one being spoiled by human-caused climate change.

At Southold Fish Market, Charlie Manwaring was wrapped in an apron and up to his elbows in stuffed clams as part of an assembly line that six years ago would have been opening a mound of bay scallops as baymen brought in bushels. As of 1 p.m., Mr. Manwaring had not seen any scallops, but he thought by Tuesday they would have some. 

Over at Braun’s in Cutchogue, the phone was ringing non-stop with customers wanting to know if they had scallops. Manager Keith Reda had taken the day off, confident that there would be no avalanche of bivalves this year. By late afternoon at Braun’s, Cathy Blasko was opening the two bushels of bay scallops that had come in. They would go on sale as soon as she finished.

The season opened with an interesting range of pessimism. At one end was Wayne King, who scalloped on the very last day of the season in March and was out again Monday with his wife, Donna. Mr. King, who is “over 80,” guessed that he might be the oldest Shelter Island bayman on the water this opening day, and there was no one around on land or sea to refute it. 

He and his wife came back with a bushel of scallops, having obviously enjoyed themselves.

At the other end was Tim Sweat, a die-hard bayman who came steaming into Greenport after covering the entire length of the Peconic Bay system — Riverhead to Flanders, Jamesport to Shinnecock — with just a bushel to show for a long day. He vowed this would be his only day of scalloping for a while. Year after year of poor scallop harvests have convinced him to focus his efforts on a more lucrative fall catch: conch (whelk).

“You see these scallops? These are adult scallops; they should be the size of my palm. This one is half the size,” said Mr. Sweat, who was tired, and angry about the overdevelopment of near-shore land for second homes. “The people who are in charge on land are not doing anything for the people on the water.”

The post Opening of season proves bay scallops are hard to find appeared first on Riverhead News Review.

Three area organizations have been working collaboratively to get the upper hand on this troublesome vegetation: Hallockville Museum Farm, North Fork Audubon Society and North Fork Pollinator Pathway group. 

“Step one is to remove non-native invaders,” said Christine Killorin, who oversees the Habitat Project at Hallockville. “These aggressive plants have no natural pests. They’re not seen as food by our pollinators. Non-natives don’t do anything for the environment. There’s less space for indigenous plants because the invasives crowd them out and take over.”

Ms. Killorin pointed out that most insects have a specialized food strategy, meaning they eat only one or two plants and cannot adapt to crunching on foreign foliage. So when native plants disappear as large swaths of land are cleared for development, many species struggle to survive. When that problem is compounded by the introduction of non-native plants, there is even less food for pollinators, she said.

One species in particular tops the invasive list at Hallockville’s Habitat Project, and it’s one that many residents assume is indigenous because of its ubiquity on the North Fork: the yellow and white flowered Japanese honeysuckle, an invasive plant that strangles trees and shrubs. At Hallockville, it has been replaced with a native variety of honeysuckle, Lonicera sempervirens — or “Major Wheeler” — which has orange and red blossoms. 

Ms. Killorin has been uprooting the non-natives on her own property. “I feel so good about it,” she said. “I see more butterflies and birds in my yard.” 

Robin Simmen, a North Fork Audubon Society board member, said she’s been working on this challenging problem ever since it became evident to her while walking one day at Inlet Pond County Park in Greenport, which was farmland until the mid-1950s. The park was rapidly losing its native plant palette because it was being overwhelmed by privet shrubs, a popular property hedge across the North Fork. “The park was a tangled hot mess of invasives. Privet was choking the trails that went down to the Sound. The park and its soil were being terribly degraded,” Ms. Simmen said. “The invasives are destroying the native environment that our wildlife depends on.” Privet seed spreads through bird droppings and grows rapidly, outpacing many indigenous plants, and leading to die-offs.

Beginning in 2017, volunteers replaced 600 square feet of non-native lawn In front of the park’s Roy Latham Nature Center with a rain garden. “It’s now thriving and filled with more than 60 species of native plants,” Ms. Simmen said. “The garden is solely irrigated by roof water and flutters with butterflies, bees and moths. Landscaping with native plants restores the entire food chain for wildlife. If we’re choosing to grow invasive plants or barren turf, we completely disrupt the food cycle and our birds and insects begin to die off.” 

Since 2021, North Fork Audubon Society volunteers have removed more than 12,000 privets along the trails at Inlet Pond Park, “which is astonishing,” Ms. Simmen said. 

Other hostile invasives include the mile-a-minute weed and oriental bittersweet vines and the multi-flora rose, a non-native bush that is particularly harmful to migratory birds as it destroys their temporary habitats and food sources. 

Although invasives also attract pollinators, which in turn help them to spread, the broader ecosystem continues to suffer. “Think of it as potato chips versus a real potato,” said Nancy DePas Reinertsen, co-chair of the North Fork Pollinator Pathway, “There’s not as much nutritional value for the pollinators, but it’s still yummy.”

Ms. Killorin explained that “butterflies and bees will seek nectar from some nonnatives, but they do not provide what the pollinators need, such as the food for the eggs to hatch on. For example, a Monarch butterfly will take nectar from lots of plants, but milkweed is the only food their eggs can develop on.”

So what can be done?

“We’re asking the Town of Southold for a grant to buy more native plants,” Ms. Killorin said. She added that invasives can change the DNA of the native plant, enabling them to effectively overtake an entire area in just a few seasons. 

A few miles west of the North Fork Audubon Society gardens is the semi-circular meadow at Custer Preserve in Southold. According to Ms. DePas Reinertsen, it is the victim of wildflowers that were planted there, undoubtedly with the best intentions, about 30 years ago. “The tall spiked purple lupines look amazing in spring, but were the wrong seeds to put in because they are an aggressive, invasive species, not the more delicate, smaller North East native Lupinus perennis,” she said. “No one knew the far-reaching problems that would be created by scattering wildflower seeds from another area of the country til just recently.” 

The Town of Southold has been notably forward-thinking with the Custer Preserve project. The Southold Peconic Civic Association’s environmental advisory committee, of which Ms. DePas Reinertsen is a member, partnered with the town to select the location for its high visibility and the many invasives that needed to be cleared. A grant from ReWild LI provided design, irrigation and several ecotypic plants. The town continues to provide funds, mulch and cardboard, and volunteers will continue working for at least five years until the meadow is completely cleared of invasives. 

Many volunteers are needed next month to plant at the meadow at Custer Preserve. Contact northforkpollinatorpathway@gmail.com for more information. Pollinator Pathway is also partnering with the North Fork Audubon Society to host a Native Plant and Seed Swap in late October. For more information, check social media or email northforkpollinatorpathway@gmail.org.

Ms. Killorin encouraged North Fork residents to “plant an oak tree in your yard. If you do that, you’ve done something important. And please, do not cut down mature oak trees.”

The post Local groups work to stop the spread of invasive plant species on the East End appeared first on Riverhead News Review.

The Southampton-based nonprofit, which operates the East End Food Market in the same location, will renovate the 5,000-square-foot building to include space for the farmers market, as well as demonstration spaces for nutrition education, a shared community kitchen, a food processing area and warehouse, plus cold storage for aggregation and distribution of locally sourced food, according to a press release.

Local officials participating in the groundbreaking included Riverhead Councilman Robert Kern, Chamber of Commerce executive director Liz O’Shaughnessy, Peter Treiber Sr. of Treiber Farms, town Supervisor Yvette Aguiar, Suffolk County Legislator Al Krupski, East End Food’s executive director Kate Fullam and outreach manager Miranda Capriotti.

“East End Food Hub is a transformative initiative that will shape the future of our community’s food ecosystem. This groundbreaking ceremony symbolizes our commitment to building a sustainable, inclusive and resilient food system that empowers local farmers, launches small businesses and connects everyone to local food,” Ms. Fullam said in a statement.

“In the last five years, East End Food has outgrown the commercial kitchen on the Stony Brook Southampton campus,” she added. “We are grateful for the partnership with Stony Brook, and now an opportunity to expand our programs and impact in Riverhead and to serve our community from Orient to Montauk and points west.”

The market continues to operate during construction.

The renovation cost is estimated at $3 million, and East End Food has already secured $1.3 million in grants and private donations to start construction. Capital campaign donations are encouraged at all levels via the East End Food website, campaign.eastendfood.org, and supporters can reach out directly to learn more at info@eastendfood.org. 

The post East End Food Hub breaks ground on construction of updated community space appeared first on Riverhead News Review.

“We’re now growing vegetables outside of the garden so that people can come by the fence and pick what they need. It’s community building,” said garden co-manager and trustee Amie Kennedy. “We’re lucky to have the fence because the plantings around the perimeter are a beautification project along with providing food for our town.” 

All along the western, southern and northern sides of the quarter-acre garden, now in its 11th year, there are tomato plants, sweet peas, raspberry bushes, beans, wildflowers, jalapenos, eggplants, zucchini, cucumbers, herbs and a huge fig tree.

“We are very aware of the food insecurity in Riverhead. We’re seeing more people come to the fence and ask if they can have some of the produce,” said garden co-manager Mary Ellen Santamaria. “It’s not all about what goes on inside the fence; it’s also what goes on outside the fence.” 

By utilizing a three-foot wide strip of real estate that borders the exterior of the garden, the hope is that passersby will help themselves to the produce and become more aware of the community garden and where their food comes from. “We want to plant what people like and want,” said Eileen Mackey, known as the garden’s “goddess,” who is also a co-manager. 

Gardeners who pay a yearly $35 fee can harvest the crops from their plots inside the fence, while anyone walking by the garden can pick from outside the fence for free. 

Ms. Mackey pointed out that students at Pulaski Street Elementary School recently donated excess green bean plants and will be watching over the sprouts as they grow.

“And with the playground next to us, we hope we can educate the kids there about the garden,” she said.

Along with putting new plants in the ground, the three gardeners will create signs to inform the public when certain veggies are ripe and ready to pick. 

Some of the produce, such as sweet peas, had already started climbing up the perimeter fence on their own. One of the gardeners put plastic fencing on the wrought iron to make it easier for vegetation that grows on a vine to shoot up.

“The fig tree outside the fence is very popular — so much so that all of the figs went to people who are not our gardeners,” Ms. Santamaria said. “Our members are very interested in helping those who need food.”

All three gardeners emphasized that the goal of the new initiative is to provide visitors with a sample of the garden’s offerings while ensuring there’s still enough for everyone. 

All of the garden’s 34 beds are currently flourishing with kale, chives, bok choy and tomatoes grown by member families, couples and individuals. Many of the gardeners cultivate a lot of one type of vegetable and wind up donating their bumper crop. Two raised plots in the garden are growing produce that will be donated to a food pantry. 

Additionally, two groups from St. Catherine of Sienna and East End Disability Associates tend the gardens here as part of their therapeutic programming.

“It was the dream of the garden founders who came up with the idea of a garden 11 years ago to one day be able to give back to the community,” Ms. Kennedy said. “We believe our garden will ease the burden [of food insecurity] a little bit.” 

The post River and Roots garden shares the bounty in Riverhead appeared first on Riverhead News Review.

Martin Sidor Farms Inc. was awarded a total of $400,000 through the state’s annual Regional Economic Development Council’s competition. According to a booklet detailing the winning proposals, the grant money will be used to expand the farm’s North Fork Potato Chip processing capacity by adding a new production facility and potato museum at the Mattituck farm.

“We’re very happy to achieve this,” potato farmer Martin Sidor said in an interview Tuesday morning. Nearly 20 years ago, the third-generation potato farmer and his wife, Carol, purchased machinery to begin expanding their operation and making potato chips. The move may have raised some eyebrows at the time, but it has helped the farm’s bottom line in what Mr. Sidor described as“in-line diversification.”

“I was young enough to say ‘Let’s try this,’” he recalled. “I still know the potato end of it, but I was reeducated on the other end: distribution, manufacturing. It’s a different animal.”

The grant funding will help them further expand operations for the potato chips, which now come in seven flavors and are distributed nationwide. Ms. Sidor, who handles the production and sales of the chips, said one distributor was moving 33 pallets a week at the height of summer, their busiest season.

“Our sales have grown,” she said. “And we ran out of space with the distributor, so it goes kind of hand in hand. The more he grows, the more we need to, and putting chips in the parking lot on pallets is not the answer.”

As for a potato museum, the Sidors said they are still fine tuning plans. They’re envisioning more of an education- based facility that will pay homage to the storied local history of the Long Island potato and provide a place where future generations can learn about the area’s agricultural roots.

“We’d like a little ag classroom, with a retired science teacher that the state actually helps provide, showing kids the soil and how this grows and that grows. I think it’s a no-brainer,” Mr. Sidor said.

Farm equipment that dates to the 1920s and ’30s and many old photographs could also be a part of the display. With five decades of farming under his belt, Mr. Sidor has no shortage of photographs and stories to share, like farmers who can recall a young Carl Yastrzemski on the back of a potato seeder picking up pieces of seed and trying to hit them with a stick.

“It’s very real to all of us on the farm,” Mr. Sidor, 71, said of the industry, which has dwindled in the last four decades. “This whole road … this was potato country. To me, it’s just a road in the winter that’s hell to drive through with snow and wind and dust. But Oregon Road resonates with people. It’s amazing.”

He continues to farm 100 acres of land along Oregon Road.

“When I came home from college — I graduated in 1973 — there were still 35,000 acres,” he said, of working potato farms.

Rob Carpenter, executive director at the Long Island Farm Bureau, estimates that number is now in the 1,000to 1,500-acre range.

He said the recent grant announcement is exciting for both the Sidor family and wider farming community and a great opportunity to partner with the state to secure the future of agriculture.

“Today, with growing costs for business, farmers are looking for new opportunities for growth,” Mr. Carpenter said. “The ability to expand their factory and take advantage of growth in the business will help to keep their

farm in production.”

In 50 years of farming, Mr. Sidor has seen it all, from crops destroyed by disease or too much rain to equipment breakdowns and, more recently, supply chain disruptions caused by the COVID- 19 pandemic and war in Ukraine.

Before the war, Ukraine exported nearly half of the world’s total supply of sunflower oil. The conflict has disrupted the global supply and led to cost increases, in turn impacting businesses like the Sidors’, who used sunflower oil to fry their kettle-cooked chips but have turned to other vegetable oils as supply is limited.

“Like in any business, there are ups and downs,” Mr. Sidor said.

The Sidor Farm project is one of 12 on Long Island that received funding under the state program, which was established in 2011.

Statewide, more than $68 million was awarded to support 74 shovelready projects that “support impactful projects that align with each region’s strategic goals,” according to a press release.

Applications for aid are reviewed by regional councils, including the Long Island Regional Economic Development Council, which made recommendations to determine the winners.

“I’m proud to announce this next round of awards that were recommended by stakeholders who live and work in the regions they represent,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement. “This investment will help bring more opportunity for New Yorkers, spur economic development, and fuel the future success of communities across our state.”

Other notable projects on the East End include a $24,500 grant awarded to Conscience Point Shellfish Hatchery in Southampton to expand their operations and $457,000 to the Bridgehampton Child Care and Recreational Center to expand a workforce training program for underserved individuals.

The post State awards Sidor Farms $400K to expand capacity, pay tribute to potato farming history appeared first on Riverhead News Review.

Farmers interviewed by the News-Review said their crops didn’t suffer for the most part, but their wallets did, pointing to higher costs for diesel, irrigation and fertilizer throughout a summer that included a two-month water emergency. 

“For the drought, the biggest issue is the amount of irrigating we had to do, and also with the high price of diesel fuel and everything, big expense this year,” said Erick Lewin of Lewin Farms in Calverton. 

Some pumpkin varieties didn’t grow as much fruit this year, but there’s enough to get through the season, Mr. Lewin said, who noted the biggest issue remained the amount of watering needed on the farm. 

Sujecki Farms and Nurseries has raised prices 15% to accommodate extra costs, said farmer Jonathan Sujecki, who highlighted the high cost of fuel and irrigation this past summer. “All in all, everything suffered,” he said.

Tom Wickham of Wickham’s Fruit Farm said: “We are lucky here to be fully irrigated. Without irrigation, there will be no farms here. With climate change this will become more critical. Any restrictions on the use of irrigation will hurt the farming industry.”

The high heat and drought conditions driving costs have been coined “heatflation,” as farmers feel the impact of climate change. Those conditions this summer created a lot of extra work for farmers, said Sandra Menasha, a vegetable and potato specialist at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County. 

“Farmers need to be irrigating 24/7 under those conditions just to kind of keep the crop quality where they need it and to get a harvest from it,” she said. “It’s a lot of extra burden and work on the growers.”

Farmers have been dealing with the financial burden of the drought and high heat in addition to increased costs for fertilizer and other inputs, she said, plus the soaring temperatures hurt pollen viability and bee activity, leading flowering crops like pumpkins and winter squash to suffer as a result. 

Blackberries suffered in particular, Ms. Menasha added. Bushes “flowering during the high heat did not get pollinated at all, and there was a whole slew of blackberry bushes that no blackberries formed or the blackberries that did form were really malformed because of incomplete pollination, and those fruits become unmarketable.”

“So there were some significant losses in some berry crops and probably some other crops too where farmers may not be able to irrigate. Or even if they do, just the timing of when something was pollinating or flowering during the high heat, they couldn’t mitigate that and lost a lot,” she said.

But it’s not all bad news, she added. Without rainy periods, disease pressure was very low this summer, “so farmers didn’t lose a lot to typical diseases that they would see from wetter conditions … so their yields and their crop quality, if they kept up with irrigation, were much better than in a wetter year or wetter season.”

Wineries in particular fared very well in the heat. The summer drought was “excellent” for vineyards, said Kareem Massoud, president of Long Island Wine Country and winemaker at Paumanok Vineyards. 

“The vines love sunny, dry, breezy, hot weather, and that basically describes what we had this summer, so it was really close to ideal conditions,” he said. 

Rich Olsen-Harbich, winemaker at Bedell Cellars in Cutchogue, said the vineyard had a “beautiful” season, and the summer drought resulted in what he described as his earliest harvest ever.

“I’ve rarely been done with whites by the end of September, which we were this year and we even got into malbec in September, which I had never done,” he said, noting the harvest will likely wrap before the end of October.

Ms. Menasha said climate experts have indicated that, as temperatures warm, growers can continue to expect a longer or shift in season, higher temperatures, more drought conditions and short periods of very heavy rainfall.

On Long Island, farmers have already started to practice climate resiliency tactics such as cover cropping, reducing tillage and building organic matter, she said. 

If water remains plentiful, Long Island farmers may even benefit from the warmer temperatures, she added, with an extended growing season and opportunity to grow more tropical crops.

But even still, this past summer was financially tough for many farmers. “It was a trying year for them. But I think all of that paid off because they do have a good crop as a result,” Ms. Menasha said.

WITH TARA SMITH AND STEVE WICK

The post Summer drought hits farm wallets on the North Fork appeared first on Riverhead News Review.