Rural gentrification impacting Hudson Valley farms

Elizabeth G. Dunn reports for the New York Times today; the headline is "How 'Fairy Tale' Farms are Ruining Hudson Valley Agriculture."  An excerpt follows:  

The Hudson Valley is a prime agricultural region stretching from New York City to Albany, N.Y., home to an eclectic mix of tractor dealerships, twee specialty food shops, dollar stores and high-end furniture boutiques. It has long been a popular destination for second-home buyers in search of a pastoral lifestyle. But since the pandemic, demand for properties there, especially farms, has surged.

The median listing price for farms, ranches and undeveloped land in Columbia County, an agricultural stronghold in the heart of the Hudson Valley, shot up 62 percent between January 2020 and January 2022, according to data from Realtor.com. Rental homes are also pricier, in part because so many of them have become Airbnbs, a mounting crisis for both farmhands and beginning farmers who don’t have places to live. A recent one-bedroom rental unit in Coxsackie, N.Y., in neighboring Greene County, drew over 260 inquiries and 130 applications, said Tracy Boomhower, a local real estate agent.

As a result, farmers are getting squeezed out. Some have tried leasing land from owners new to the area, but those alliances are more challenging than they might appear, farmers said, since many of the new owners don’t know what it takes to run a farm.

* * *

Sophie Ackoff, an executive director of the National Young Farmers Coalition, a nonprofit that supports the interests of beginning farmers, is no stranger to the issue. “We’ve seen a surge in interest from non-farmer buyers in the Hudson Valley,” she said, adding that such bidders often have a buyer’s advantage over farmers just starting out. That includes access to speedier loan options, whereas beginning farmers largely rely on slow-moving loans through the United States Department of Agriculture.

Access to affordable farmland is a major challenge nationally, particularly for people of color, who today make up 2 percent of farmland owners. To address this, the coalition has started the One Million Acres for the Future campaign, which calls for Congress to invest $2.5 billion in the 2023 Farm Bill to facilitate equitable access to land.

According to Holly Rippon-Butler, the land campaign director for the coalition, farmland near cities is especially desirable for small livestock operations and fruit and vegetable growers, because of the greenmarkets and farm-to-table restaurants nearby. Competition is the worst in “places where there’s a lot of money and the agricultural land is high quality and aesthetically attractive.”