Farm Briefs: May 1, 2016
Press Republican
May 1, 2016
ESSEX — The Adirondack Council and the Klipper Fund, working with a coalition of partner organizations, recently celebrated Earth Day by awarding their first Cool Farm/Healthy Planet micro-grants to 12 Adirondack farmers and food producers.
The grants are designed to make the farms more environmentally friendly while helping them remain an important part of a sustainable Adirondack economy, a media release states.
Grants of between $500 and $1,500 are for energy conservation, carbon emissions reduction, helping bring or keep the next generation of farmers on the land and for promoting clean and environmentally healthy sustainable-farming efforts. Projects that enhance the economic, human and environmental sustainability and resiliency of Adirondack farms are prioritized.
Grants were awarded to:
- Black Kettle Farm, Essex: $1,500 for a horse-powered wood-splitting operation
- Boquet Valley Farm, Westport: $1,000 to modify and enhance beekeeping equipment
- Echo Farm, Essex: $1,500 for improvements to a solar-powered watering system
- Harris Family Farm, Westport: $1,500 for draft horse gear at an organic dairy
- Hub on the Hill, Essex: $1,500 for solar power improvements
- Juniper Hill Farm, Westport: $1,500 to upgrade cold storage and decrease energy use
- Kelsie’s Creamery, Essex: $500 to increase seeding and pasture sustainability
- North Branch Farm, Saranac: $1,000 for diversified and more climate resilient crops
- North Country Creamery, Keeseville: $500 to expand/improve grazing rotations
- Reber Rock Farm, Essex: $500 towards an expanded marketing campaign
- Sugar House Creamery, Upper Jay: $500 to upgrade milking technology
- Tangleroot Farm, Essex: $1,000 for a growing tunnel to support early season crops
The council also announced it would multiply the impact of the farm grants project through the sale of its new Cool Farms/Healthy Park Carbon Reduction Certificates.
For each $25 certificate purchased by donors, the council will obtain and retire one carbon allowance from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
Each allowance represents government authorization to emit one ton of carbon pollution. Only a limited number are issued each year, and each year the number is reduced until the region’s carbon-reduction goals are met. Every allowance that is retired instead of being used equals an additional one-ton reduction in the regional pollution cap.
