Gov. Shapiro touts Agriculture Innovation Fund at Martic Township farm

• By Elizabeth Deornellas/LNP | LancasterOnline

Gov. Josh Shapiro and Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture Russell Redding visited Steve Groff’s Cedar Meadow Farm in Martic Township on Monday to promote a proposed $10.3 million Agriculture Innovation Fund that would invest in innovative techniques such as those used in the regenerative process by which Groff produces hemp and vegetables.

A bill that would create the innovation fund advanced in the Pennsylvania House Agriculture & Rural Affairs Committee last week, and Shapiro is now calling on the state Senate to include the program in its budget bill in order to establish the fund as a yearly boost to farming projects.

“Frankly, it would be stupid not to focus on agriculture when we think about our future,” Shapiro said at Monday’s visit.

The proposal could aid a significant sector of Lancaster County’s economy. The 2022 Census of Agriculture recorded 4,680 farms in Lancaster County, producing $1.85 billion worth of agricultural products.

The 200-acre Cedar Meadow Farm, which has been a pioneer of regenerative agriculture techniques such as cover crops and no-till farming, is now focusing on fiber hemp and has developed new hemp harvesting machinery to help solve the industry’s lack of processing capacity in the state.

“This groundbreaking technology will lay the foundation to bring the textile industry back to Pennsylvania,” Groff said.

An innovation fund will support projects that put agriculture at the center of the state’s development, Shapiro said.

“The future of our economy in Pennsylvania runs directly through farms like this,” Shapiro said.

Expanding technology in agriculture
Drones are another area in which investment in technology can benefit local farmers, said Jim Hershey, president of the Pennsylvania No-Till Alliance and a farmer of 500 acres in Elizabethtown who spoke at Cedar Meadow Farm on Monday.

Local farmers have had to replant corn and soybeans three to four times within a growing season due to slug infestations, Hershey said, and drones can enable farmers to precisely spread bait to combat the pests.

“Farming is not an easy occupation,” Hershey said. “There’s a lot of risk involved.”

Drones also have applications in the climate-smart agriculture arena, Hershey said, explaining that the machines allow farmers to spread cover crops in August and September before their crop is even harvested.

Farmers are already incorporating climate-smart policies into their operations, Shapiro said, adding that the innovation fund aims to expand that work.

Shapiro has been hyping the proposed Agriculture Innovation Fund since February, when he made New Holland Agriculture’s North American headquarters in New Holland Borough one of the first stops after his budget address.

The ideal timeline would see passage of the budget in July, which would allow grant proposals to be submitted to the innovation fund in late summer and early fall, Redding said.

House Republicans asked to add an advisory committee to ensure farmers were involved in defining “innovation” and assessing grant proposals, and Redding said he doesn’t anticipate other major changes to the proposal as it moves into potential consideration in the state Senate.

Redding previously announced $1.5 million for conservation research in April, which would bring the state Department of Agriculture’s annual research budget to approximately $3.7 million. While that money is already allocated, the $10.3 million innovation fund remains at the mercy of budget talks.