ALBANY – Chenango County will be represented in the hundreds of farm advocates who will converge on the state capitol today with the intent of raising the awareness of legislators to the concerns of New York’s largest industry – agriculture.

“(We want) to stop Albany from “plowing us under,” explained Chenango County Farm Bureau President Bradd Vickers, who is leading the local contingent to the New York Farm Bureau’s annual Lobby Day.

Vickers, CCFB Vice-President Harvey Fletcher, Director Linda Denz and Annette Connick, a farm bureau member and retired Ag in the Classroom teacher, will be among the one thousand expected to attend the event this year.

The purpose of the trip, Vickers said, is to “reaffirm the importance” of agriculture to the state’s economy and to encourage legislators to stop increasing taxes, fees and the number of mandates with which farms are forced to comply.

According to Vickers, these policies are not only putting family farms out of business, but have larger ramifications as well.

“We’re talking about the economy and our food supply,” he explained.

Also on the Farm Bureau’s lobbying agenda is trying to halt legislation which has a detrimental effect agriculture, such as the Farmworker Fair Labor Practices Act.

The advocacy group is also working hard to restore funding to the Department of Agriculture and Markets budget, which was cut by another $7 million in Governor Paterson’s executive budget proposal.