Issue Briefs

The potential for widespread hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” threatens New York’s abundance of farmers markets, community-supported agriculture, and locally grown produce and food products. Fracking is a process that the oil and gas industry uses to extract natural gas and oil from shale rock formations buried deep within the Earth. It requires large quantities of water mixed with sand and toxic chemicals, which are injected underground at high pressure to crack dense rock and release oil and gas.

In the public debate over government spending, the federal budget deficit and the U.S. Farm Bill, there has been increasing focus on proposals to reduce government subsidies to farmers growing corn, soybeans and other so-called commodity crops.