Governor Hochul has announced two grant opportunities to help address the impacts of climate change and protect water quality. Funding is available in four tracks: Livestock Management (alternative waste and precision feeding management), Adaptation and Resiliency, Healthy Soils, and Agricultural Forestry Management. Contact your local Soil & Water Conservation office for more information. 

By Farm Credit East

There are a number of grants and incentives available for Northeast agriculture businesses, but learning about their availability and navigating the application process can be a challenge. To help with this, Farm Credit East has released an update to its report identifying federal, regional and state grants, loan guarantees, and other incentives available to assist Northeast producers of all types and sizes.

This post is an excerpt from the document, focusing on funding opportunities available in New York. Find a full list of opportunities, including sector-specific opportunities for states including, but not limited to New York, see here.

By Jason Karszes

On more and more dairy farms every year, employees play integral roles in day-to-day operations, decision making, and problem solving. In these roles, ideas for changes to operations and for capital investments are generated. While these ideas might be quite important to the middle manager for their area, across the farm other opportunities in support of the overall priorities and mission of the farm also need to be considered. 

Proposing change to the leadership of the farm, or as part of the leadership team, is typically an essential step to improve farm operations. Developing proposals in support of the change can help with identifying all the potential risks and returns and decision-making by the senior management team.  Several key areas to address in the proposal are laid out below. 

Fall weather can bring daily temperature fluctuations that can affect your cow's udder health. Check out this article to learn more so your farm doesn't fall into "udder trouble". 

In case you aren't aware of this resource, PRO-DAIRY's Dairy Market Watch provides monthly information and analysis of Northeast dairy market trends. Just released are the July 2025 data.

Kate McDonald Polakiewicz has joined our team as Farm Business Management Specialist and will be offering programming in financial management, production economics, business planning, and market analysis. 

Many acres across New York were unable to be planted to corn, soybeans or new perennial forages due to extended wet conditions during this spring's planting season, resulting in several crop insurance claims. Check out this guidance for manure applications on prevented planting acreage for farms under CAFO permit and/or following a CNMP.

Check out what's 'moo' from the Cornell Vet School dairy research team! This article summarizes their two recently published articles on colostrum in the Journal of Dairy Science Communications.

You might think it's too early to talk about corn silage harvest, but this season's challenges have many re-evaluating plans. Preliminary estimates from John Hanchar, NWNYDLFC, put the corn silage price at approximately $63 per ton. These early estimates can support informed decision-making as cropping and forage strategies shift.

As part of its mission, Cornell's Animal Health Diagnostic Center (AHDC) offers valuable diagnostic services to New York State livestock producers. They can evaluate freshly dead animals, blood, and tissue samples to determine the cause of illness or death in your herd or flock.

Take a moment to read my reflections from the 2025 ADSA conference, where I explored research on calf health, robotic milking, and farmer-led education—and how these ideas and more could benefit dairy farms in Southwest NY.

We're excited to have John on our team for this summer as we work around the region! If you see him out and about, don't hesitate to say hello!