{"id":9112,"date":"2025-04-05T10:47:51","date_gmt":"2025-04-05T14:47:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.adirondack.org\/?p=9112"},"modified":"2025-04-07T10:49:50","modified_gmt":"2025-04-07T14:49:50","slug":"usda-cuts-threaten-strained-north-country-food-systems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adirondack.org\/regional-press-coverage\/usda-cuts-threaten-strained-north-country-food-systems\/","title":{"rendered":"USDA cuts threaten strained North Country food systems"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When grass is healthy, it\u2019s full of protein and easy for cows to digest. Sometimes the summers are unbearably hot, and the grass dries up and energy is sent instead to the seed. The grass becomes less nutritious and the cows don\u2019t produce as much milk. If the summer then becomes unusually wet, the withered grass will struggle to recover.<\/p>\n<div id=\"ADSN_Article_300x250\" data-google-query-id=\"CMLE4fz4xYwDFTzt9QIdhc8qiQ\">\n<p>Over her 12 years as owner of the North Country Creamery, Ashlee Kleinhammer has seen these unusual weather patterns become more common. To make their pastures and their 100% grass-fed herds more resilient in any kind of weather, Kleinhammer embarked on a project to plant trees. The trees help enrich the soil, protect from erosion and give the cows someplace to escape the sun \u2014 and resulting heat stress \u2014 that can affect their milk production. They even provide an alternate snack for the cows to munch on.<\/p>\n<p>The funding that was promised by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to buy these trees is now on hold, perhaps indefinitely \u2014 just one example of how farmers and nonprofits that work to support the pieces of the fragile food system in the Adirondack region are now facing uncertainty, loss of funding and layoffs resulting from USDA cuts.<\/p>\n<p>Jon Ignatowski works with a team at the Adirondack North Country Association that oversees programs related to food systems. ANCA serves as the lead manager for three USDA grant programs that benefit a variety of small businesses and farms in the North Country.<\/p>\n<p>North Country Creamery is one of eight farms that ANCA is working with as part of the Partnerships for Climate Smart Commodities program. This program supports $3.09 billion for projects across the U.S. and $1.08 billion in New York, according to a USDA dashboard. These North Country projects are agroforestry projects like Kleinhammer\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>Read the full article in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.adirondackdailyenterprise.com\/news\/local-news\/2025\/04\/usda-cuts-threaten-strained-north-country-food-systems\/\">Adirondack Daily Enterprise<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When grass is healthy, it\u2019s full of protein and easy for cows to digest. Sometimes the summers are unbearably hot, and the grass dries up and energy is sent instead to the seed. The grass becomes less nutritious and the cows don\u2019t produce as much milk. If the summer then becomes unusually wet, the withered [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5088,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional-press-coverage"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>USDA cuts threaten strained North Country food systems - ANCA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.adirondack.org\/regional-press-coverage\/usda-cuts-threaten-strained-north-country-food-systems\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"USDA cuts threaten strained North Country food systems - ANCA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When grass is healthy, it\u2019s full of protein and easy for cows to digest. Sometimes the summers are unbearably hot, and the grass dries up and energy is sent instead to the seed. The grass becomes less nutritious and the cows don\u2019t produce as much milk. 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