EAST AURORA, N.Y. — Local farmers shared their worries, as the cost of working in the agriculture business is set to increase, as a result of new overtime and pesticide legislation.
Steve Ammerman from the New York Farm Bureau shared his thoughts about how those two major changes will impact our local farmers this year.
“That makes it more challenging to farm,” Ammerman said “Anytime you make it harder and more expensive to produce food, that creates so many more challenges for local food production.”
Two local farmers shared their opinions about how these changes will impact them and other agriculture workers across Western New York.
Starting Monday, the state mandates that any work over 56 hours for hired farm employees must have overtime paid. This is a decrease from 60 hours last year.
The process will continue with the overtime threshold limit reducing by 4 hours every other year until reaching 40 hours in 2032.
Kelly Reynolds with Reyncrest Farm in Corfu has about 20 employees.
Bryan Strzelec with Erba Verde Farm in East Aurora had previously worked at his father’s large dairy farm.
Both feel that even though a four-hour difference may seem like a small change, it makes a big financial impact.
“Our family can work anywhere from 75 to 80 hours a week, and our employees are right there with us,” Reynolds said. “We don’t have a problem playing overtime, but we can’t pay unlimited overtime especially during those busy seasons… We’ve had to cut our employees’ hours.”
“Most farm laborers, especially in the summer, work long hours,” Strzelec said.
“Animals and crops don’t work on a 40 hour work week,” Ammerman said.
Along with these increased labor prices, the newly signed Birds and Bees Protection Act can increase costs even more.
Starting in 2027, the sale of certain seeds treated with pesticides with the active ingredients clothianidin, imidacloprid, thiamethoxam, dinotefuran, or acetamipridpesticides will be banned to protect pollinators, like bees.
However, many farms like Reynolds’ are using those types of seeds to keep their crops safe from pests.
Now, they’re looking to pay for their new alternative.
“We will probably have to replace some of those seed treatments with something else,” Reynolds said. “The farmers need pollinators more than anyone really, so it’s not like we want to do anything to harm them.”
Stezelec has a much smaller farm than Reynolds, and feels this is a good change for New York, but he wishes the implementation could be done differently.
“I think in general it’s a good idea, but I want to see more incentives for farmers to not use those things,” Stezelec said.
In the future, the New York Farm Bureau feels both changes could have their impacts seen at our local stores.
“It raises the risk of more farms going out of business, that lowers the local food supply and certainly if food has to be trucked in from other states and other countries there may be costs associated with that, that may be passed on to customers,” Ammerman said.
