Planning & Economic Development

County & regional planning, rural communities, Cornell agriculture & economic development, Technology Farm, land and agriculture, food systems

Seneca County Planning and Community Development 

The Seneca Co. Planning and Community Development Department is responsible for comprehensive countywide planning, economic development coordination, tourism promotion, and manages the Agricultural District Program. Through the Department’s website one can access the most recent edition of the Seneca Co. Farmland Protection Plan and the farmland protection plans for the Towns of Junius and Lodi. The Town of Romulus also has a farmland protection plan. This is a paragraph.

Genesee Finger Lakes Planning Council 

The Genesee Finger Lakes Planning Council prepares the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy which outlines the strategic economic development needs of the area. The report provides an overview of the area’s social and economic trends using recent data from state and federal sources.

Finger Lakes Regional Economic Development Council Strategic Plan

The Finger Lakes Regional Economic Development Council Strategic Plan notes the importance of agriculture production, food processing, and the wine sector in the Finger Lakes Region.

Economic development projects have the potential to be funded through the Consolidated Funding Application.

For Rural Communities 

It is necessary for citizens and their leaders to be actively engaged in shaping the destiny of their communities. Often, simple, yet powerful actions are all that are necessary to start the momentum in a community toward a new and more promising future. Strategies for Sustainable Small Town and Rural Development provides information on inventorying local assets that can be used to strengthen rural communities.

Placemaking is turning a neighborhood, town or city from a place you can’t wait to get through to one you never want to leave. Regional Placemaking: Connecting Towns as Places uses pictures to contrast places that attract people to communities as residents, customers, and tourists.

Cornell Program on Agribusiness & Economic Development

The Cornell Program on Agribusiness & Economic Development (CPAED) focus is to encourage the development, growth, and competitiveness of agribusiness firms by improving the understanding and application of agricultural marketing, business management, industry development skills, and strategies. Areas of specialization include food manufacturing growth with emphasis on smaller scale producers and value-added food processors, agricultural cooperatives, and agricultural production responses to environmental and sustainability provocations.

Cornell Agriculture Community and Economic Development (AECD)

AECD begins with the recognition of agriculture’s contribution to the community. Local farms provide livelihoods for farm families and jobs for farm business and agri-service employees. Farms conserve open space as working landscapes.

Cornell Technology Farm

The Technology Farm provides a campus for research and development in the areas of food and agriculture. This business incubator has flexible policies regarding the development and ownership of intellectual property to build the competitive advantage of businesses who locate there.

Land and Agriculture 

The Impact of Agriculture: It’s More Than Economic PART 1 and PART 2 explores the impacts of agriculture in rural economies through social/cultural, environmental, and economic benefits.

Changes in property ownership can mean a change in the use of the land. What are the Plans of Owners of Idle Agricultural Land in NYS? shows that 8% of land in NYS is idle farmland and over 10% of these land owners plan to sell their property in the near future mostly because they cannot afford the property taxes and need the money.

Food Systems 

Land and Diet: What’s the Most Land Efficient Diet for New York State? examines the land resources necessary from the climate, soil, and dietary perspective of an individual adult to meet his or her dietary needs for one year. In NYS the model shows that, “Even though a moderate-fat, plant-based diet with a little meat and dairy uses more land than the all-vegetarian diet, it feeds more people (is more efficient) because it uses more pasture land, which is widely available.”

Local Food Systems: Concepts, Impacts, and Issues provides a comprehensive overview of local food systems, estimates market size and reach, describes the characteristics of local consumers and producers, and examines early indications of economic and health impacts of local food systems.

Regional Food Hub Resource Guide compiles relevant and practical information to share lessons learned to spur the development of food hubs for local producers and their customers to build distribution infrastructure and services that would allow local food producers to access nearby local and regional food markets.

The Local Foodshed Mapping Tool for New York State investigates the capacity of agricultural land in a given area to support its population.

Last updated July 26, 2019