Grape farmers across the Lake Erie region could soon see a financial boost as federal officials consider steps to support the industry.<\/p>\n
The future of grape farming in North East gained renewed attention Monday as U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called on the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to take action to help farmers in New York and Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n
At a press conference in Chautauqua County, New York, outside of the Cornell Lake Erie Research and Extension Laboratory, Schumer urged the USDA to begin purchasing grapes and grape products, a move he said could help provide financial relief to farmers dealing with surplus crops.<\/p>\n
North East grape farmers Tadd Burch and Sam Valone said they are encouraged by the announcement, while recognizing that there is still a long road ahead before any assistance reaches local growers.<\/p>\n
State Rep. Pat Harkins also traveled to New York for the announcement and told us he is hoping the Schumer\u2019s plans come to fruition.<\/p>\n
Schumer also explained that USDA can use Section 32 of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1935 to purchase surplus grapes and grape products for distribution through nutrition-assistance programs, an authority that has previously been used to support grape growers and stabilize agricultural markets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Grape farmers across the Lake Erie region could soon see a financial boost as federal officials consider steps…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[145],"tags":[504,1411,1419,50,39,51],"class_list":["post-192695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chuck-schumer","tag-chuck-schumer","tag-local","tag-new-york","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-politics"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/117114773380001622","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}