TAKE FIVE!

July 06, 2021

Jenny Sanchez:
Hello, I’m Jenny Sanchez. Welcome to Sulliavn 180 Presents… Take Five! Our guest today is Ashley Tully, from Cornell Cooperative Extension Sullivan County. Ashley, thank you for joining me!

Ashley Tully:
Hi, Jenny. Thank you for having me on today. It’s a pleasure!

Jenny Sanchez:
Please introduce yourself, and your title, and tell us a little bit about your organization.

Ashley Tully:
Of course, my name is Ashley Tully, and I work as the Agricultural Program Coordinator at Cornell Cooperative. Extension. The Cornell Cooperative Extension is a long standing institution that does education services in five different sectors. “Agriculture and Food Systems” is my sector and we have a team there, but we also have “Youth and Family Services”, “Environment and Natural Resources”, and “Caregiving Resource Center”. We serve the community where we’re located, so you’ll see Cooperative Extensions throughout the state and throughout the country. Our charge is to really bring research to the people as well as be able to serve the county and the needs that it has.

Jenny Sanchez:
So you’ve covered this a bit just now, but can you go into this a bit further: what kind of programs and services do you offer ?

Ashley Tully:
The “Ag and Food Systems” team offers education across the board into the industry. So as of this year, some of the services that we have offered, like “marketing and e-commerce for food and farm workers”, and “financial enterprise planning courses for entrepreneurs” to help them work through their ag or food business ideas to produce a business plan. We do technical production education in varied sectors from livestock to diversified vegetables, to orchard management. And we also do one-on-one advice consulting with anybody who is interested in some of these sectors. We have a large push towards “food safety” as well. So there’s food safety plans being adapted and written, and this sort of encompasses the larger work of the team.

Jenny Sanchez:
And what would you like people to know about “Sullivan County Agriculture”?

Ashley Tully:
Well, agriculture is the second largest economic sector here in Sullivan County, and there’s well over 350 active operating farm businesses here. So it’s important and it is what makes up the rural character of our county, which is what people love about it, and why people are continuing to flock here. And we’re seeing economic growth in this sector alongside with the growth that we’re seeing in the tourism sector. And they go hand in hand because of the consumer market. What I would like to share is just how important it is, not just to our natural resources, but to our identity and to our survival as a county. And I hope that people will continue to educate themselves about agriculture and stay interested and support their local farms. And we can do that through supporting them at the farmer’s market with your food dollars or by getting more involved in different ways. It’s really whatever kind of inspires you and makes you interested, hang on to that!

Jenny Sanchez:
And you mentioned one or two ways already, but what can county residents do to help your programs, and your organization?

Ashley Tully:
County residents can see some of our events, which is our educational courses on our website. So we promote them widely through social media, but if you want to go direct to the source, you can go to “www.Sullivancce.org/events”. We post all of our upcoming events there. We also have a YouTube channel, which is where you can find our virtual events,and education courses over the last year and prior years. I really recommend people checking them out! We have some great content that’s been produced over the last year, and we share some content from other CCEs who do similar programming across the board. And if you are interested in agriculture, they can be a really nice introduction into the industry as well as an opportunity for you to kind of, see where you fit in. And if you are interested in supporting us further, in supporting the work that we do as an organization and our nonprofit mission and the services that we offer throughout the county, you can go to www.Sullivancce.org/donate to donate to our non-profit mission.

Jenny Sanchez:
Is there anything else you’d like to share?

Ashley Tully:
If anyone would like to stay in touch, you can certainly reach out to me, I’ll share my information, but I can be reached at our office at 845- 292-6180, extension 1 1 2. I really focus with beginner farmers and agritourism businesses. So I answer a lot of inquiries from people that are interested in purchasing land or are interested in kind of fleshing out their farm dream. And I just want to encourage people to make that phone call or send me an email. I’ve been in that place before, and I think it’s just great to be able to talk to someone who has a little more experience or an expert in a certain subject. It’s great to be able to guide some of your choices and to really inspire you to where you might be able to find the right information and to move forward because everybody starts somewhere and farming is a great career. There’s a lot of jobs in the ag sector currently from top to bottom from management to harvest labor . Getting experience is a great way to kind of launch your farm dream and we need more farmers. So be encouraged and don’t hesitate to reach out!

Jenny Sanchez:
There anything else that you’d like to share?

Ashley Tully:
I would like to add: one of the projects that we run through the ‘Ag and Food Systems Team’ is a program called “Sullivan Fresh”. It’s an initiative that is really working towards making more fresh food available to the residents in Sullivan County, which historically we have some food deserts in the county and we also produce a lot of food. So we really want to make those connections affordable and easy, and access is a part of that. So the Sullivan Fresh Market, our farmer’s markets, has been in Monticello. We also have a Mobile Market Van that stops in Loch Sheldrake, Wurtsburo, Liberty and South Fallsburg. This year, we’re excited to offer another incentive, which is called’ “Double Up Bucks”. Any residents that are using their snap EBT card can actually double their purchasing power. So for example, if they spent $10 on their SNAP card, they could actually purchase $20 worth of fresh fruits and vegetables, which can really change the course of their planning for the week and offers them a great option of ‘purchasing local’, which often is seen as less affordable than the grocery store. We just want to continue to make the point that we think it is more affordable and it is definitely a higher quality, and we want people to give it an option sp they can give it a try. And you can find all that information on our website as well, orr you can follow us at Sullivan Fresh on Facebook or Instagram.

Jenny Sanchez:
Ashley, thank you so much for being here and for sharing your great programs with us.

Ashley Tully:
Oh, it’s my pleasure. And I appreciate the time to talk about it and spread the word!