Originally published in Focus magazine, September 15, 1995
GENEVA, NY - Agriculture is a row-by-row, inch-by-inch endeavor that presents farmers and processors with a variety of complex problems in an environment that is ever-changing. With one eye on the weather, the stewards of our food supply juggle variables from seed viability, land chemistry, and crop physiology to farm implements in a complicated equation that equals a plentiful food supply. In timing crop-specific techniques for planting, cultivation and harvest, they struggle with pests like insects, weeds, and disease-causing microorganisms. To move food from farm to consumer as fresh or packaged commodities, they weigh factors like quality, health, safety, and affordability.
A long-standing partnership between New York State taxpayers and scientists at Cornell University's New York State Agricultural Experiment Station (NYSAES) in Geneva, NY, helps sustain New York's number one industry - food and agriculture - valued at over $21 billion annually. For 115 years, this unique partnership has helped farmers provide fruits and vegetables to consumers, resulting in many improvements in the grand horticultural experiment we call production agriculture. It is an experiment that feeds 17 million people in New York alone, and millions of others in the Boston-Washington corridor.
In response to increasingly complex environmental issues and consumer demand for new, value-added products, the mission of the Geneva Experiment Station over the last three decades has broadened beyond the scope of production agriculture, however. Researchers continue to develop improved varieties of fruits and vegetables and new methods of production, but technology has changed. Today, gene jockeys integrate molecular methods of genetic transformation with classical breeding techniques to develop insect- and disease-resistant varieties, working with nozzle nuzzlers to decrease our reliance on pesticides. In the last decade, entomologists, plant pathologists, and horticulturists at the Station have been successful in ushering in a new era of pest control called Integrated Pest Management (IPM), which has reduced New York growers' and turf managers' reliance on chemicals.
Research and outreach continue at the Station in response to new challenges. In the last decade in particular, research and education programs conducted at Geneva have played a major role in the dramatic renaissance of the New York grape and wine industry. To help satisfy changing consumer demand for "freshly packaged," "quick", nutraceutically-enhanced, gourmet, and/or ethnic foods, food scientists at the Station have played a pivotal role in helping fledgling and established entrepreneurs - both large and small - negotiate health, safety, and licensing regulations to develop hundreds of new food products.
Third-generation vegetable farmer, Dale Hemminger, of Seneca Castle, NY, farms 2000 acres and runs a 300-cow dairy. Like thousands of farmers before him, he relies directly on agricultural information developed by researchers at the Geneva Experiment Station.
"We need the Ag Station and we need Cornell to help us keep our costs low, to develop good management practices, to help us monitor and manage insects, diseases, and weeds, to monitor soil fertility, and to keep new varieties coming," he said. Projected yields at Hemdale Farms this year will be factored into a 1995 New York State vegetable processing equation that totals well over $250 million. Despite the hot, dry weather of 1995, in August, Hemminger was projecting yields of "1550 tons of snap beans, 6000 tons of cabbage, 3000 tons of beets, and 1600 tons of sweet corn" - nearly 24 million pounds of vegetables.
Like most growers, Hemminger is both cautious and aggressive when it comes to trying out new farm technology. Before he invests his time and money, he wants to make sure a new variety, a new control, a new technique, or a new sampling method works somewhere else first. He relies on trials conducted in labs, greenhouses, and fields at the 800-acre Geneva Experiment Station to do the research and prove its value to the Hemdale Farm operation.
Agricultural research that is developed and tested today becomes practice in the fields of tomorrow but it may take two to five or more years to produce reliable results, and several more years before the practice, the variety, or the technology is adopted. In that respect, agricultural research is a lot like farming: a process where observations made on a daily basis contribute to weekly, monthly, and yearly gains resulting, ultimately, in decades of increasingly better yields, and higher quality and safer food.
During the past century, the Station has communicated research results to its audience in the form of bulletins, newsletters, field days, fruit and vegetable schools, and by face to face contact with extension agents and farmers. To generate and keep abreast of the latest information today, farmers and researchers also rely on technology unavailable ten years ago: computers track production and crop records; scouts send insect monitoring reports via computer and Fax; farmers, researchers, and extension agents talk shop over the Internet; and weather data and forecasts are available over CENET, a Cornell electronic network.
Hemminger is quick to point out what most consumers don't know: "There is a complete turnover in vegetables varieties every five years," he said at an Ag Business Roundtable discussion held in Ontario County in August. His concerns were for the future: "Where would we be without the research of people like Mike Dickson at the Experiment Station?"
Dickson, a vegetable breeder who just retired, spent his career breeding vegetables for yield, pest resistance, quality, and adaptability. Since 1960, he worked to develop white mold and brown spot resistant germplasm for snap beans. The Station provides this germplasm free of charge to commercial seed companies who use it to produce new hybrids-another successful partnership.
"We used to think two tons per acre was a good yield," said Hemminger, who has grown snap beans for 30 years. "Now we are approaching yields of four tons per acre and are disappointed if we don't get it. Some say we have an over-supply problem, but if New York farmers fall behind in our ability to improve yields and reduce our costs of combating insects and diseases, it's the consumer that loses."
Harold Teeple of Wolcott, NY, agreed. He and his family farm 250 acres of apples on the shores of Lake Ontario and have been involved in New York's apple industry since 1945. In 1995, the New York Agricultural Statistics Service projects production of 1,130 million pounds of apples in New York. Five varieties developed at the Station-'Cortland' (1915), 'Empire' (1966), 'Jonagold' (1968), 'Jonamac' (1972), and 'Macoun' (1923)-will account for nearly 20% of the total production in 1995 in New York State. Since 1914, the Geneva Experiment Station has released more than 224 new varieties of fruits; including more than 60 varieties of apples.
The Teeple family cooperated closely with Station apple breeders Roger Way and Susan Brown in the development of the 'Royal Empire', an apple that was first discovered as a limb sport on an 'Empire' tree on Teeple Farms, and released in 1990. "It comes on redder than 'Empire', improves the pack [to extra fancy grade], and is more appealing to consumers," said Teeple.
Production agriculture for fruit and vegetables is only part of the food infrastructure supported by research at the Geneva Station. Part of the Station's continued success and service over the past 115 years has been in its ability to develop and adapt research programs to meet new challenges posed by growers, industry, the environment, state regulatory agencies, the university, and consumers.
The wine and grape industry is a case in point. Since the New York legislature passed the Farm Winery Act in 1976, 77 new wineries have been established. Total production from all 97 New York wineries is 25 million gallons and gross sales are over $300 million. New York is now the second largest wine producer in the U.S.
Jim Trezise, President of the New York Wine & Grape Foundation, is a strong supporter of the Station's Wine Research and Extension Program. "The numerous viticultural projects have increased vineyard productivity, the enology projects have helped to improve wine quality and consistency, while the newsletters, seminars and workshops have ensured that the information ultimately arrives where it belongs - in the vineyards and wineries," he said.
His assessments are seconded by Thomas G. Davenport, Director of Viticultural Research and Regulatory Compliance for the 50-year-old National Grape Co-Operative Association, Inc. "National Grape Co-Operative and its wholly owned subsidiary Welch Foods have a long association with Cornell University's New York State Agricultural Experiment Station," he writes, and "this association has enabled National grape producers and Welch to maintain and expand our businesses not only in New York but in the entire United States as well as internationally."
Davenport outlines developments in vineyard scouting for insect pests, new cultural and management practices that have increased yield, the use of weather stations and monitoring programs to reduce pesticide applications to support his estimate that "overall savings from the above and other cultural practices amount to $187 per acre. Applied to New York State's 33,000 acres of grapes, industry-wide savings could be as high as $6 million."
Other industries throughout the state have received valuable technical assistance from the Food Venture Center (FVC), a program initiated in the fall of 1988 by the Station's Food Science and Technology Department.
Joel Frank, Program Director for the Argus Community's New Leaf Program, helps provide job training for 170 formerly homeless men and women in the South Bronx. In the spring of 1995, they received a license to market the vinegar they make flavored with the herbs they grow to help support their own program. "The Food Venture Center is an incredible resource," said Frank. "Dr. Don Downing was extraordinarily helpful in guiding us in the proper notation of our vinegar process so we could gain licensed approval from Ag & Markets. When the FDA came in to inspect a week after we were licensed, they told us we exceeded all requirement for commercial production."
David Moore, Corporate Quality Assurance Manager at Indian Summer, a fruit juice company with operations in Lyndonville, Sodus and Medina, NY, noted: "As a result of the advice I have received [from the FS&T Department at the Station], I have been able to redirect my efforts to prevent a quality defect from reoccurring, at a potential savings of $40,000 per year."
The federal government has posed its own challenges to the Station: within seven years, Integrated Pest Mangement is to be practiced on 75% of the nation's agricultural acreage. Since the inception of the statewide program at the Experiment Station in 1986, New York has emerged as one of the nation's leaders in this initiative. Nearly 500 IPM projects have been funded in research, development, and implementation, decreasing pesticide use and increasing profitability for New York farmers, nursery operators, and turf managers. Research-backed methods of pest forecasting and monitoring, action thresholds, and biological conrol have helped most New York apple growers reduce their pesticide use by as much as 50%, while turf managers at golf courses - traditionally some of the heaviest pesticide users - have been able to cut pesticide use by 54%.
Does Station outreach stop with vintners, growers, processors, and entrepreneurs? No. Today, Station researchers are more heavily involved in educating the next generation of scientists than ever before. A widely diverse group of visiting scientists and graduate students from around the world work in the laboratories and field trials at the Station, assisting faculty, and infusing programs with new energy, ideas, and concerns. Scientists at the Station also support education at the elementary level taking hands-on projects into schools around Geneva on a volunteer basis to give students a greater understanding and appreciation of fruit culture, pollination, honey bees, hornworms, nematodes, cabbage loopers and-coincidentally-science and math.
Research conducted at the Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva insures the viability of a multitude of enterprises across the state and the future of New York's food supply. Outreach programs educate consumers, growers, processors, entrepreneurs, industry, and future scientists. In 1882, the budget was $10,000 a year; in 1995, it is $19 million. Some of the Station's budget comes from state and federal sources, some from grants, contracts, gifts, and other places. New York taxpayers fund slightly more than half of the total budget and it is a remarkable bargain: For roughly 50 cents per person per year, New Yorkers guarantee the future of the food chain that sustains them, the stewardship of at least 25% of the land in New York State, and the economic viability of industries that contribute $21 billion to the state's economy.
Generating support for the Station's research programs has not always been easy. Every director has grappled with the problem. But the partnership between taxpayers and scientists that was first established in 1880 has continued to prosper and bring positive results. Today, it is complemented by increased support from growers, processors, and industries that benefit from Station research.
Hemminger and Teeple, Trezise and Davenport, and Frank and Moore are just a representative few New Yorkers who support the Geneva Experiment Station. They are adamant that research affecting all sectors of agriculture is good for growers, good for the economy, and good for consumers. They are concerned about a lack of support for research at all levels: by farmers, by industry, by the public, and by legislators.
"We have a good thing going between Cornell, extension and farmers," said Hemminger. Despite urban land-use pressures in New York that are almost negligible in competing states, nationally, the state ranks third in apple production behind Washington and Michigan, first in snap beans for processing, fifth in sweet corn for processing, and second in wine production.
In the brave new world of 21st century food and agriculture, positive cash flow on the farm and in food manufacturing facilities means more than keeping one step ahead of the competition. Like forever, it also means staying one step ahead of the weather, the technology, the tools, the insects, the diseases, the weeds, the waste, the market, and the spoilage microorganisms. It also means being environmentally responsible. "Research helps us do that," said Hemminger. "If we let it slip, we'll never get back the advantage we now have."
Contact: Linda McCandless
315-787-2417
e-mail: llm3@cornell.edu
Communications Services
New York State Agricultural Experiment Station
Geneva, NY 14456
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