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There are about 20 people in a basement conference room at the Wyoming County Agriculture and Business Center, sipping coffee and playing an introductory name game. Today, participants will learn to recognize the signs and symptoms of depression, suicidal thoughts and more in a course called Mental Health First Aid.
As a child on a New York farm, Eben Bayer helped his dad shovel wood chips in the barn. That’s where he noticed a stretchy web of fungus that became the basis of his biodegradable packing material.
For upstate counties, particularly in rural areas, the suicide rate can sometimes be double or even triple the rate of New York City counties. The upstate farming industry has been struggling in recent years, but there is help for farmers who need it.
The product is hemp, and it’s been getting more hype lately for various types of industrial and consumer uses.
Over the weekend, Republican congressman Tom Reed hosted a series of three town halls around his Southern Tier district. They came just after the partial federal shutdown ended.
Beginning January 26, Farm Service Agency offices across New York and Pennsylvania will reopen. Nationwide, the USDA is recalling almost 10,000 workers to help farmers affected by the partial federal shutdown.
Food assistance in the form of SNAP benefits came early this month owing to the shutdown. But in Pennsylvania, recipients are spending the benefits quickly, and there may be no new funds for February.
Pennsylvania’s Agriculture Department is opening up its hemp program, pending approval from the federal government. The commonwealth has run a pilot program for industrial hemp over the past two years, but it was only open to entities growing the crop for research.
New York’s Farm Bureau says even though the legislature is under Democratic control, the needs of farmers don’t change. The group, that represents New York farmers, has announced its legislative priorities.
New Yorkers who receive federal food assistance, also known SNAP, will get their February payments early. SNAP, which a federal program and part of the Agriculture Department, is caught up in the federal shutdown, but earlier this month the USDA instructed states to issue the February payments early.
Industrial hemp used to be grown across the commonwealth and used for things like clothing, rope, and animal feed. Its popularity started to decline with the rise of cotton about 150 years ago, but the industry really suffered a setback when Congress outlawed it in the 1930s because of its similarities to marijuana.
