Published: September 21, 2007 12:35 am      

FARMING: Agriculture Day focuses on reform, achievement

The 2007 Leadership Niagara Class got some eye-opening reports before their annual “Agriculture Day” tour Thursday.

Paul Bencal, president of the Niagara County Farm Bureau, gave the group’s position on the immigration issue and gave some farm bill numbers.

“We need a secure a legal, abundant work force to get the job done,” Bencal told the Eye-Opener breakfast at the Cornell Cooperative Extension. “We’re not looking for amnesty. We want reform.”

Bencal, who grows grapes on his Ransomville farm for Welch’s, said the average migrant worker is paid $10.41 an hour and they get health care. “These are skilled jobs and skilled workers. They are not criminals. Let’s get them legitimized ... Social Security taxes are withheld, but they are not benefiting from it,” he said.

The money migrants pay goes into the general Social Security coffers, according to Bengal.

There is no 2007 farm bill, and Bencal hinted that Washington is waiting for 2008, a general election year. The Niagara County Farm Bureau is a grassroots organization that lobbies in Albany and Washington, D.C.

According to Bencal, 66 percent of the farm bill recipients go to 10 percent of the farms. Iowa is No. 1 and gets 10.8 percent. New York state ranks 30th and gets 0.5 percent of the farm money.

“Right now the farm bill is just totally blown wide open in Congress,” There’s no central focus on where the farm bill should go,” Bencal said. “There is a lot of opposition between specialty crop growers, fruits and vegetables and the traditional program crops. As a fruit grower, I get no subsidies.”

Sen. George Maziarz, R-Newfane, applauded the Leadership Niagara Program and told of the burgeoning wine industry in eastern Niagara County. Also, the ethanol plant in Orleans County could take every ear of corn from the Western New York counties to produce 50 million gallons of ethanol.

Assemblywoman Francine Delmonte, D-Niagara Falls, said that Gov. Eliot Spitzer has made more of a commitment to agriculture.

Leadership Niagara members took a bus tour of the Hoover Dairy in Sanborn, the Gasport View Dairy to observe the milking operation, the Marjim Manor in Appleton, Sun Orchards/Russell Cold Storage in Burt and the Becker Farms in Gasport.

Contact reporter Bill Wolcott at 439-9222, ext. 6246.