Keep Farming in Chatham

In March 2004, Chatham, NY in Columbia County became the first New York pilot community for the Keep Farming Program. At the time the Town was updating its 30 year old Comprehensive Plan and the Comprehensive Planning Team was committed to preserving and supporting the presence of agriculture in the community as a core component of the new plan. The Town felt that the Keep Farming Program would help them gain a much better understanding of the agriculture in their area.   

During the year, the Chatham Agriculture Partnership (CAP) was established to bring together farmers and other local leaders to work with Glynwood to provide coordination and oversight to the project in Chatham. The CAP recruited volunteers who formed assessment teams that used the Keep Farming process to analyze how Chatham’s farmers contributed to the local economy, protection of natural resources, access to local foods,   and community character.  They met with farmers to gather information and surveyed local residents.  A series of community meetings were held to keep local residents aware of how the project was progressing.  In November 2004, a community-wide agriculture forum was held and each of the teams reported their findings. 

The big surprises reported on included:

• Farmers were contributing more than 1.25 million dollars to the local economy through the purchase of goods and services, i.e., veterinarian services, seeds, equipment, etc. Residents quickly realized that agriculture is a major industry. 

• Approximately 60% of the land farmed is leased rather than being owned by the farmers.  This arrangement was seen as being very fragile and putting the farmers at great risk.  If the land owners were to sell their property the farmers would not have adequate resources to continue their farming activities.

• Commodity dairy is the primary type of agriculture in the area and dominates the other sectors such as produce, alpacas and sheep farms.