Farming

Rising fertilizer and fuel costs tied to Middle East conflict are adding pressure to Riverhead-area farmers heading into the growing season.

Bill Zalakar, former president of the Long Island Farm Bureau and a longtime figure in the region’s agriculture industry, has been appointed the advocacy group’s new administrative director. 

North Fork farmers say they would welcome tariffs to make their products more competitive with imports from Canada and Mexico. But tariff exemptions keep them at an 'unfair' disadvantage.

Horton’s Flower Farm, a small plot of land tucked away on a desolate stretch of Horton Avenue in Riverhead, surrounded by farmland, offers many ways to connect not only with nature but with the area’s agricultural heritage, too.

A disagreement between the Town Board and the L.I. Farm Bureau, about allowed uses on preserved land, especially vertical farming, created an impasse, Supervisor Tim Hubbard said. The Town Board decided to shelve the proposal.

Juan Micieli Martinez, a Riverhead winemaker, was elected the new president of the Long Island Farm Bureau during the organization's annual meeting and dinner on Oct. 24.

Workers at Pindar Vineyards in Peconic this fall became the first farm workers to organize and form a union under the 2019 Farm Laborers Fair Labor Practices Act. Workers, the Long Island Farm Bureau and the union weigh in on what this will mean for farm workers and farm owners in the local region.

Lowering the threshold for time-and-a-half overtime pay below 60 hours a week could devastate local farms already reeling from the effects of the COVID pandemic, local farmers told state lawmakers yesterday.

Emil and Kyle Breitenbach, who come from a longtime farming family on the North Fork, have started their own farm and reopened the stand known to generations of locals as "Skelly's"

Local farmers, whose operations rely heavily on an immigrant workforce, told Rep. Lee Zeldin they are worried they won't have the labor they need to sustain their farms, vineyards and greenhouses. They want federal immigration reform to move forward.