Adirondack North Country Association

Archive for the ‘Local Foods’ Category

Local Lard? Probiotics from Homemade Sauerkraut? Preserving the Nutrients from NNY-Grown Foods?

 Learn How to Improve Your Nutrition Using Local Foods May 6, 7 or 8 in Plattsburgh, Canton or Watertown

 Plattsburgh, Canton, Watertown, NY — Did you know cooking with the lard rendered from local grass-raised pork can provide a good source of vitamin D and healthy fatty acids? Want to add probiotics to your diet – how about making your own sauerkraut? Need a good food-based source of calcium or nutrients to help your joints?

 Nutritionist Martha V. Pickard will offer the answers to these questions at three “Are You Eating Local Yet?” events set for:

• Thursday, May 6, 5:30-8:30pm, Plattsburgh High School, Rugar St, Plattsburgh, NY
• Friday, May 7, 5:30-8:30pm, Eben Holden Hall, St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY
• Saturday, May 8, 10am-3:30pm, Case Junior High School, Watertown, NY.

 Pickard says, “It’s time to re-learn what our grandparents already knew.  Food grown close to home and properly prepared can create vibrant health for our families.”

 Pickard is an American College of Nutrition Certified Nutrition Specialist and holds a Master’s degree in Human Nutrition from the University of Bridgeport in Bridgeport, CT. She is also a grazing specialist with the Adirondack North Country Association, Saranac Lake, NY.

 “I am excited to talk about budget – conscious ways to enhance the nutritional value of local foods and incorporate them in everyday meals even with a hectic schedule,” Pickard says

 The “Are You Eating Local Yet?” agenda also includes presentations by Northern New York farmers, chefs, and Jennifer L. Wilkins, creator of the first regional food guide in the U.S.

 For more information, contact Cornell Cooperative Extension Clinton County: 518-561-7450; St. Lawrence County: 315-379-9192; or Jefferson County: 315-788-8450. #

Shannon Hayes is the author of Radical Homemakers, The Grassfed Gourmet and The Farmer and the Grill.  She is the host of grassfedcooking.com and radicalhomemakers.com.  Hayes works with her family on Sap Bush Hollow Farm in Upstate New York.

Last month I released a new book, Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture.  The result of three years of obsessive research, the book is something of a manifesto for a movement of Americans who believe that a household can survive – thrive, in fact – on a single income or less; they can live happily and equitably, influence social and ecological change, and minimize their reliance on a consumer culture by reviving their domestic skills and redefining what constitutes “having enough.”  The people profiled in the book were single and married; with children and without; rural, urban and suburban; vegetarians and omnivores. 

While the book has received a delightfully warm reception, that last description – omnivore – has raised the eyebrows of a few folks, particularly when they consider my personal and professional background. It involves a lot of meat.  My family raises and processes our livestock. I have written two books about cooking sustainable meats.  I maintain grassfedcooking.com to answer people’s questions about working with local livestock farms and purveyors of local meats.   I’ve achieved some regional notoriety, if not for my writing, then for my artisanal sausages.  Every Saturday from Mid-May through Mid-October, I can be found at a farmers’ market in the Catskill Mountains, standing beside my husband, selling my family’s meats.

Not surprising, then, that since the book’s release, a common question I have been asked regarding sustainable living is, to paraphrase:  I agree with your premise that Radical Homemaking is possible and important.  But, really, do you honestly think animals and people can live together sustainably?

Anyone who has ever leaned their cheek against the side of a dairy cow, breathing in her sweet scent while squeezing her milk into a pail; who has watched a crowd of spring lambs prance across pasture, punctuating their dance with spontaneous four-footed leaps; who has witnessed the amazing fertility of a manure-nourished garden, who has wiped grease off her chin after secretly feasting on cracklings before presenting a fresh roasted leg of pork to the family at Easter dinner; who has reached under a hen and found a warm fresh egg after delivering a bowl of kitchen scraps to the flock — might ask a different question:  Is there any sustainable way that humans and animals could not live together?

Meat as a Community Affair
Historically, in my community, humans and livestock have been nearly inseparable.  West Fulton, NY is a series of frosty hollows surrounded by forested hills and rocky, steep pasture lands.  When agricultural industrialization swept through the country, our small fields and pitched slopes made machine cultivation not only problematic, but treacherous.  A previous owner of our own farm was killed by a tractor rollover decades ago – a not uncommon death for earlier generations around here.  But even when local farms were deemed “non-viable” decades ago by agricultural officials who saw the ground couldn’t be adapted to big technology (the eleven months of frost didn’t help), many of them stayed in production.  And although most incomes were well below the poverty line, people in West Fulton could feed themselves by maintaining hand-cultivated vegetable patches and small herds of livestock.  Cattle, sheep, chickens, goats and pigs were well adapted to our landscape and trying climate.  And they could produce food on fields that never saw a plow.

In an era that faces fossil fuel shortages, climate change concerns, swelling population, food security problems and economic hardships, the symbiosis between animals and humans becomes even more important to understand. 

Ruminants and the Environment
The consumption of meat has come under ecological scrutiny on a variety of fronts, from resource efficiency to water pollution to global warming.  Livestock, particularly ruminant animals, like cattle and sheep, play a critical role in all of these current global problems.  Managed improperly, as we’ve seen, they are a big part of the problem; but stewarded properly, they can be a big part of the solution. 

For at least three decades, the use of these animals as a food source has been criticized by some as a ruinous misuse of cropland, because ruminants are not efficient animals to raise on grain. In animal science, the calculated ratio of the amount of grain an animal requires to gain a pound of weight is called the conversion factor.  When grain is fed to fish, the conversion ratio is about 1.25 to 1; for every 1 ¼ pounds of grain product fed to a fish, there is a pound of weight gain.  The conversion ratio for chicken is 2 pounds of feed per pound of gain on the bird.  Pork requires 4 pounds per pound of gain.  And when ruminants enter the equation, it skyrockets:  estimates may vary, but generally lambs require 8 pounds of feed for a pound of weight gain, and beef requires 9 pounds of feed per pound of gain. 

When assessed by this principle alone, red meat does presenta serious ecological problem.  Grain production is extremely taxing on the environment, particularly when considering use of the chemical fertilizers and pesticides, soil degradation, nitrous oxide emissions, and the fossil fuel-intensive mechanized farming and transport.  In this paradigm, a lot more people could be nourished with that grain if it weren’t being dumped into livestock first. 

But there is a problem with relying solely on this equation to evaluate the efficacy of meat production:  ruminants are not designed to eat grain.  By the nature of their digestive systems, sheep and cattle thrive best on lands suited to grow only pasture.  They can even convert crop waste, such as corn stalks, into food.  Industrialized agriculture relies on grain-feeding, not because the animals require it (in fact, it is harmful to their health), but only because it makes cattle gain weight uniformly faster. In short, raised on properly managed pastures, ruminants don’t compete with humans for grain-producing acreage, and in turn, they supply us with bountiful nutrients, and leave the earth better for having walked upon it.  Out on intensively-managed pasture, they have been shown to restore vegetative cover, increase biodiversity, and to improve soil fertility, thereby making our fields more resistant to both drought and flood.  Seen from this viewpoint, grassfed ruminants are arguably the most efficient way to convert sunlight and water to quality protein.

Interestingly, one of the latest concerns about ruminant livestock production has been methane emissions.  Enteric fermentation, the fermentation of forage in the rumen, is a natural part of the digestion process for ruminant animals.  Because their diet is naturally high in roughage, grassfed animals will belch more than their factory-farmed counterparts (the process is unnaturally suppressed in factory farming due to a coating of slime that grain-feeding causes in the rumen).  This belching has generated some negative publicity for ruminants, which is unfortunate (and incredible!), since they and their ancestors have been roaming the earth for tens of thousands of years, long before there was a methane problem.  Undoubtedly, there are other sources of methane that are more serious culprits to contend with: oil, coal and gas consumption and landfills being some of the more salient.  On her website eatwild.com, Jo Robinson reports on research that was conducted by Dr. Rita Schenck at the Institute for Environmental Research and Education which shows that, when we account for the carbon sequestration resulting from grazing animals (where well-managed pastures pull excess carbon from the atmosphere), even with increased enteric fermentation, there is still a net reduction in greenhouse gases. Interestingly, researchers also now suspect that the great spike in atmospheric methane concentrations in 2007 is a result of thawing permafrost in the artic.  These scientists speculate that one way to slow the melting of permafrost is to re-introduce herds of herbivorous animals to the region.  “Snow is like a down jacket that keeps the ground warm,” says University of Alaska-Fairbanks researcher Katey Walter, in an interview with Scientific American, “As the activity of animals compresses the snow or removes it through their foraging, the cold winter temperatures can penetrate deeper into the ground and keep the permafrost frozen”.

Pigs and Chickens: Omnivores and the Sustainable Household
While they don’t forage the same way as ruminants, omnivorous animals, like pigs and chickens, can also play a part in regaining global sustainability.  Raised in concentrated factory farm settings, these animals require large amounts of grain to be processed and trucked in, that could be more efficiently fed directly to people.  Kept in these horrific densities, their accumulated wastes are also a potent source of pollution. But dispersed on small farms and backyard or urban farm settings, these animals have a greater purpose.  Their grain requirements are minimized because they forage and recycle human food waste and turn it into more food.  The backyard pig is a common phenomenon in rural communities all over the world.  Allowed controlled foraging, the pig will eat mast like fallen nuts and acorns, dropped apples, insects, tuberous weedy plants and household food scraps.  In exchange, they yield meat, skin for cracklings, bones for stocks, and lard for cooking and soap making.  Chickens perform similarly, if on a smaller scale.  The backyard hen magically converts household food scraps into eggs.  Later, when her egg-laying begins to fail, she adds sustenance to the soup pot.  Both animals produce nutrient-rich manure, which then invigorate household gardens, the surplus of which (along with some protein) then goes back into the livestock.  These animals help us to round out our household and local ecosystems, enabling us to constantly regenerate nutrition on a local scale without having to draw excessively on fossil fuels to provide commodity grain. 

The Union of Life and Death
While I hope the above points will reassure the human omnivore eager for a pasture-raised pork chop or some free-range eggs and hash, I suspect they might ring hollow to those who are averse to the killing of animals for meat – period. 

Any vegetarian who has ever challenged face to face the morality of a livestock farmer (especially one in the sustainability movement) can probably report receiving a touchy and defensive retort. This is because – contradictory as it might seem – we choose this because we like animals – not because we enjoy killing them or see slaughter as a means to a profitable end.

Sadly, those of us who make our lives farming have become a national cultural anomaly.  From my own view from my family’s land, it seems that mainstream American Culture harbors incongruous ideas about life and death.  The culture has a quirky tendency toward adulation of life, and abhorrence of death.  When daily life is directly tied to the ebbs and flows of nature, as they are in agriculture, one cannot help but observe that life and death are forever in service to one another.  We cannot have one without the other.  We nurture the newborn livestock, and we process the ones that are ready for market.  We harvest one crop, we plant seeds for another.

All beings, whether human or other-than-human, have an inherent right to a natural existence in the world, and each has a way to contribute to the welfare of the greater whole.  Inevitably, a time will come when every life must give way to sustain balance on the earth. On the farm, there is an understanding that nothing we eat to sustain ourselves comes without the sacrifice from another living being, be it animal, plant or microorganism.  Thus, we take all food, whether it is a hamburger, a pork chop, a carrot, a spoonful of yogurt or a slice of an apple, in moderation and gratitude.  Nothing is eaten without an understanding of the sacred life and spirit that created the nourishment, and the ecosystem that was required to sustain it.  

I understand that there are many vegetarians out there who will disagree with me.  Our divergences are a necessary, important tension.  Conscientious eaters long before the locavore movement, vegetarians can be thanked for helping draw attention to the ecological havoc and travesties to animal welfare that have come to define our conventional livestock production system. Their criticisms and questions have also assisted small family farms, like my own, to devise ways to improve our practices and to reflect deeply upon the nature of our work. When it comes to the livelihood professed in Radical Homemakers, the lessons taught by vegetarians have entered my own kitchen.  Meat will always be a part of my life, but I believe that it should not be taken in the extreme and wasteful way our culture has defined as acceptable.  We cannot produce such tremendous volumes of meat sustainably, and wasteful and nonchalant consumer habits fail to honor the sacrifice of the animals’ lives.

I understand that no amount of explanation of the hows and whys of grassfed livestock production will convince the person who is opposed to killing animals that eating meat is okay.  Unless they or someone they love manifests a nutritional need that can only be met by animal proteins, they may never cross that philosophical divide.  Life on my family’s farm and in my own household is informed by and is reflective of the concerns of such folks; I remain thankful that those perspectives and questions continue to come forward.  But to answer the question: Can animals and humans sustainably live together?  My personal vote is “yes.”

Shannon Hayes wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions.

Peter Slaunwhite, PRM Horizon Organic presents Doug Donahue and Heather Donahue of Donahue Family Farm, Horizon’s 2009 Quality Milk Producer award. The Donahue’s farm achieved #1 Ranking for NY State.

ANCA staff have worked closely with the Donahue farm by providing technical assistance with their grazing plan.  Heather Donahue is the co-president of the ANCA facilitated grass Farmer-to Farmer networking group, The Northern NY Farmer’s Partnership.

Doug and Heather Donahue of Donahue Family Farm in Gouverneur, NY achieved top ranking for Milk Quality in New York State for Horizon producers. The award was presented on March 3, 2009 at Horizon Organic’s Annual Producer Meeting in Canton, NY. Peter Slaunwhite, the area Producer Relations Manager for Horizon, stated how pleased he was with the quality of milk that is produced in the North Country.  Of the 18 NY dairies that received Horizon’s Quality Milk awards this year, 15 of them are in Slaunwhite’s producer group, which includes the North Country.

“We have spent the last 5 five years building our dairy from the ground up.  Producing quality milk has always been our goal and achieving #1 ranking for NY State Horizon producers is very encouraging.” said Heather Donahue

The Donahues began their 50 cow organic dairy with their daughters, Emily and Erin, in 2006. In addition to producing organic milk for Horizon, they have a NYS Raw Milk License which enables them to sell raw milk directly to consumers at the farm.  The farm also produces beef, pork and eggs.

For further information please contact:

Heather Donahue

277 Stevens Rd

Gouverneur, NY 13642

(315)287-2296

donahuefamilyfarm@gmail.com

www.countryhousecreamery.com

Cattleman Ridge Shinn, who is featured in this article,  has spoken at many ANCA sponsored Grazing Workshops and worked closely with many of our Northern NY Farmer Partnership members.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1953692,00.html

I wish to thank ANCA staff members for the following gifts: Adirondack Old Fashioned Wood Smoked Summer Sausage from Gold Cup Farms; Hot Maple Mustard from Mapleland Farms (one of the many repeat exhibitors at Buyer Days, ANCA’s regional gift trade show, March 31 and April 1, Saratoga Springs); the honey from S. N. Rinas Apiaries of Chestertown; and the New York State Maple Syrup.

Press Republican – December 21, 2009

By REP. WILLIAM OWENS
In My Opinion

The holiday season is a time when we come together with our family and loved ones to celebrate the many blessings of our great nation, and to take a breather from our day to day lives in preparation for the year ahead. At the same time, Upstate New Yorkers like myself and others will no doubt spend some time at shopping centers and local malls picking out gifts for those we love. But, as we all finish our last-minute shopping, it is important to remember that where we buy our gifts may be just as important to our friends and neighbors in the community as it is to those receiving the gift.

We all know that consumer spending plays a major role in the American economy. What is less well known is that those purchases can have a positive impact here in our community if we buy from local vendors. Walk through any downtown square across our district, and you’ll find everything from bookstores and furniture stores to eateries and hobby shops. Small businesses like these are deeply integrated into our local economy.

Buying a gift from local vendors has a compounding effect on other small businesses and is important to our community for a number of reasons. First, locally owned stores are more likely than national chains to purchase their inventory from local manufacturers. Locally owned stores are also more likely to rely on local service providers for their banking, accounting, internet service and other needs and are more likely to spend their profits within the community.

Moreover, local small-business owners are more likely to hire from the local labor pool, and if their business grows they can ultimately create jobs in our community.

In light of all this, some studies have estimated that every dollar spent at a local business can generate three times as much spending within our local economy than when we spend that same dollar to buy a gift from a national chain or “big box” retailer.

This is not to disparage retail chains, as they have as much of a place in the economy as anyone else, but for our friends and neighbors who have lost their job or seen their wages fall in this tough economy, any investment in our community that leads to job creation or economic development is of great importance. That alone could make the difference for our job creation efforts and be a first step in the right direction toward putting our local economy, as well as national economy, back on track.

William Owens (D-Plattsburgh) is the representative of the 23rd Congressional District of Northern New York.

Grazing Schools to be Offered for Farmers

Plattsburgh – North Country farmers use grasslands to pasture livestock and lower production costs by taking advantage of a “free” feed source. To help producers increase their knowledge, the Adirondack North Country Association and Cornell Cooperative Extension are co-sponsoring two advanced-grazing schools Feb. 27 and 28.

“There is a groundswell of producer and consumer interest in grass-fed, grass-finished livestock products,” said meeting organizer Betsy Hodge, livestock educator with Cornell Cooperative Extension of St. Lawrence County in Canton. “We are pleased to bring Gene Schriefer to the North Country to share his experience with the grass fattening of cattle and sheep.”

Grazing specialist Schriefer, a sheep and beef producer from Dodgeville, Wisc., will be the featured speaker for the 7-9pm program on Feb. 27 at the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Jefferson County in Watertown. That program will be shared by videolink to the Essex County Extension office in Westport.

New York State’s Grazing Land Management Specialist Darrell Emmick and beef producers Roy and Renee Smith will join Schriefer on the agenda at the Madrid Community Center in St. Lawrence County on Saturday, Feb. 28, from 10am to 3pm. The Saturday meeting includes a lunch of locally grown beef.

Schriefer, who has also worked with dairy farmers on pasture design and watering systems, will speak about grazing research trials in Wisconsin and on paddock layout and design issues for managed grazing.

Register for the Westport program with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Essex County at 518-962-4810 (preregistration required for this session); and for the Madrid program, with Betsy Hodge, Cornell Cooperative Extension of St. Lawrence County, 315-379-9192, or Martha Pickard, Ag/Grazing Program Coordinator, Adirondack North Country Association at 518-891-6200.

The fee for the Saturday program is $10 for the locally grown beef lunch and program materials. The Friday evening program is free; those attending are asked to bring a dessert to share.

Resources for those interested in North Country grass-based agriculture and livestock production are found on the Northern New York Agricultural Development Program website at www.nnyagdev.org.

Farmers Discuss Energy Saving Practices

December 19, 2008 – The Adirondack North Country Association hosted its Ag Energy Workshop and Annual Meeting on October 30, 2008 at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Chateaugay, NY. The Ag Energy Workshop featured Commissioner Patrick Hooker, NYS Department of Ag and Markets as keynote speaker. The ANCA Board of Directors’ Meeting took place after the Ag Workshop, and in the annual reappointment of officers and appointment of new directors, Howard Lowe of Clinton County was appointed to the Board. Don Caldera of Lake Placid will continue as President of the Board.

ANCA’s Executive Director, Terry Martino, opened the workshop meeting and thanked the Franklin County Legislature for their support of the Ag Energy Workshop in recognition of the county’s bicentennial. She said the program was timely in that energy is a big factor in whether farm operations are profitable and there are increasing concerns about the cost and availability of energy and fuel. She said the program continues ANCA’s partnership with the Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative, Heifer Project International and the Cooperative Extensions while making it possible for North Country farmers to hear from Commissioner Patrick Hooker.

The morning program began with a presentation about Your Energy Dollars—Where Have They Gone? provided by Richard Gast, Ag Program Assistant, Franklin County Cooperative Extension. Following the discussion about the main areas of energy waste on farm operations, the workshop included three panel discussions: Improve Energy Efficiency, Reduce Use, Save Money moderated by Kirby Selkirk co-owner of Kirbside Gardens in Chateaugay and manager of the Chateaugay Farmers Market; Farm to Save Energy, Curb Pollution, moderated by Martha Pickard, ANCA Grazing Program Coordinator; and Tomorrow—Generate Energy You Can Use on Your Farm, moderated by Bernadette Logazar, Ag Team Coordinator/Rural and Ag Economic Development for Franklin County Cornell Cooperative Extension.

Panel presenters included Scott Shipley who spoke of farm energy audits, net metering and a new law that makes commercial net metering possible. Bob Zufall, an organic dairy farm owner in Lisbon, NY explained how an energy audit prompted him to update barn lighting for energy efficiency and cost savings and also discussed rotational grazing. Ralph Child, owner of Childstock Farms in Malone, a large-scale vegetable and potato farm, told how upgrading machinery and equipment enabled him to reduce diesel and electric costs. Don Tetreault, a dairy farmer from Champlain, discussed how he was able to utilize design to improve efficiency to increase milk production. Jo Ellen Saumier from Adirondack Farmers Market and Chateaugay Farmers Market advocated direct marketing as a means to significant cost savings. Tom Both of Adirondack Harvest described high quality food choices that Farmers Markets provide to the consumer and the value in making local food purchases.

Kimberly Richey of White Stone Farm in Chateaugay discussed her energy efficiency savings in the operation of a 230 acre farm on which she raises sheep, grass-fed beef and lamb. Fred Tuttle, an organic dairy farmer discussed no-till seeding and drilling in undisturbed soil which saves fuel by 1/3 and reduces carbon release. Bill LaPoint, Forest Manager, stressed that forest management must be practiced in order to bring about good growth, continued harvests and carbon sequestration. Mike Farrell of Cornell Sugar Maple Research and Extension Program said that syrup production is a very energy intensive production and that processes such as reverse osmosis can make operations more economical.

Bill McKently, owner of St. Lawrence Nurseries in Potsdam, operator of a large home windmill, said the three best alternatives to the inconsistencies of wind power are solar hot water, photo voltaic cells and cooling using outside air. Bruce Bonesteel, owner and operator of Bonesteel’s Gardening Center in North Bangor discussed the use of solar energy and design in his greenhouses. Jon Greenwood, owner of Greenwoods Dairy Farm in Potsdam and co-chair of the northern NY Agricultural Development, discussed methane digesters. Michelle Ledoux, Executive Director of Lewis County Cornell Co-op Extension and an ANCA Director, spoke about a Community Digester Project taking place in Lowville. John Lawrence, operator of a 50-cow family-run dairy farm in Jefferson County, discussed the use of biofuels and how he uses a hay burning stove.

The presenters told of their own experiences and provided information on how to improve energy efficiency, the benefits of on-farm energy site assessments, how to reduce energy usage, curb pollution, upgrade machinery and equipment, save money, and the pros of generating energy on the farm using wind, solar, fuel from animal and plant waste, geothermal and bio-fuels. Crop diversification, net metering, forest management and locally grown foods were also topics of discussion. In combination the speakers provided a farmer-to-farmer network that is increasingly important in ensuring the development of effective energy saving strategies.

During his keynote address Commissioner Patrick Hooker emphasized the importance of an aggressive agriculture program in New York State especially in the North Country. He commended ANCA for addressing energy which he said is an overwhelmingly important topic for farmers. Hooker emphasized it will be important to cut costs for producers with renewable energy and energy efficiency. He recommended on-farm energy audits and discussed the need to maintain the Upstate Ag Development Fund with a component for energy. He reviewed renewable energy options and said there is evaluation of the cellulosic uses of grasses, fast growing willow and low grade wood. He emphasized sustainable technologies while engaging research from New York’s schools, research centers and organizations.

Commissioner Hooker’s commentary was strong evidence of his commitment to the agricultural industry in New York State. His remarks were well received and generated considerable discussion. The audience was particularly interested in his view of how local food production is a vital component of national security. He said that a decade ago no one was talking about local food, and now there is an increased emphasis on “Buy Local.”

Following the workshop, the Adirondack North Country Association Board of Directors convened for the Annual Meeting and election of officers. The following slate of officers was presented to the Board of Directors for the vote: Donald L. Caldera, President; Paul M. Cantwell, Jr. Vice President; Dale G. Brown, Treasurer; Ross Whaley, Secretary; Richard R. Bird, Central Region Vice President; Stephen M. Erman, Northern Region Vice President; Kenneth W. Parker, Southeastern Region Vice President; John Bartow, Western Region Vice President. The following directors were re-appointed to the Board: Richard Burns, St. Lawrence County; Bruce Ferguson, Washington County; Jonathan MacAbee, Franklin County; Ronald Ofner, Essex County; Arnie Talgo, Oneida County.

Howard Lowe was elected to the ANCA Board representing Clinton County. Mr. Lowe is the Director of Economic Development at Plattsburgh State University, Plattsburgh, New York, where he has headed the Technical Assistance Center (TAC), since June 2002. In the broadcasting industry for over 30 years, with positions at the CBS and PBS affiliates in Boston, Mr. Lowe served as a senior manager with public television and radio stations in Sacramento, Long Island, Omaha, and finally Plattsburgh, New York, where he was president of the PBS station. Mr. Lowe’s expertise in project management, telecommunications including CBN (Community Broadband Network), fund raising, media content production, marketing, and economic development makes him a valuable addition to the ANCA Board of Directors.

ANCA is committed to economically viable communities and a rural quality of life. For more information about ANCA visit www.adirondack.org or call 518-891-6200.