About Harvest New York

Farm to School specialists spent the spring helping NYS farmers, producers, and manufacturers take advantage of opportunities to sell to institutional markets. Many school districts and BOCES release food bids each spring for the following school year, and the Farm to School team provides targeted outreach and 1:1 technical assistance to producers responding to these opportunities.

Recognizing the opportunity for community gardens and urban farms to contribute to New York City’s urban forestry goals, Urban Agriculture Specialists Karen Guzman and Yolanda Gonzalez partnered with Connor Youngerman, Agroforestry Specialist with Cornell Small Farms, to develop a series of Air-Pruned Raised Bed (APRB) Workshops across the five boroughs. This past spring, six workshops were hosted at urban farms that already maintain fruit trees and are interested in expanding their tree production capacity. 

Beyond increasing local tree production, this model creates new fundraising opportunities and income streams for community gardens and farms, which often rely on external grants and donations to sustain their programming. A second round of workshops is planned for the fall and will focus on transplanting techniques, post-planting care, and building partnerships with local parks and other organizations to distribute the trees throughout New York City, further strengthening the city’s urban forest through community-led efforts.

New York’s livestock industry needs affordable, locally-grown feed. Hemp grain can fill that gap. Results from our preliminary model suggest that producing more grain means growing smarter, not bigger—higher yields per acre matter far more than simply planting more land.

With today’s farming techniques, hemp grain can generate $450+ per acre in profit when selling both the nutritious meal and oil. An ambitious expansion to 1,000–1,600 acres across the state could supply 40% of poultry and horse feed demand, keeping dollars local while boosting farm profitability.

The spotted wing drosophila (SWD) is an invasive fruit fly affecting New York berry producers since 2010. SWD populations grow throughout the state during the growing season, and infestations can cause complete crop losses in blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, and late-season strawberries. Controlling the SWD requires an intensive, weekly spray program that incorporates at least 3 different insecticide mode of action groups. The New York Farm Viability Institute has issued a grant for our team of researchers to trial the efficacy of two different products designed to reduce sprays. This is the second year of trial data collection on commercial farms in New York. Photo from Hannah Burrack, North Carolina State University, Bugwood.org

The 2026 Gaining Relevant and Outstanding Work Skills (GROWS) season began on April 1 with two participants, expanding to six by June. Through hands-on training in agriculture and workplace readiness, the program continues to build a skilled local workforce while reducing barriers to employment.

Throughout the spring, participants gained hands-on experience in the greenhouse, seeding hundreds of vegetable plants that contribute to local food production. Training included irrigation systems, proper use of personal protective equipment (PPE), and safe tool selection, while also building transferable skills relevant to agriculture, landscaping, and facilities management. Participants also supported farm operations through recordkeeping and data tracking, including rainfall monitoring, maintenance scheduling, and contributions to an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) rodent exclusion project.

Participants are now distributing food they have grown to local pantries serving communities with limited access to fresh, organic produce. 

On June 1, more than 400 New York City public school teachers gathered at Columbia University’s Teachers College for the Food and Nutrition Education Summit, a day dedicated to exploring innovative approaches to food and nutrition education. Event speakers highlighted the importance of food education and the role educators play in helping students build lifelong healthy habits. 

Participants had the opportunity to choose from more than 30 workshops covering a wide range of topics. Harvest New York’s Kate Preston and SJ Peterson presented Harvesting the 3 C’s of Farm to School: Engaging Students Through Food & Agriculture, where attendees learned about Farm to School programming, local food procurement, food and agriculture-based curriculum resources, and strategies for connecting the three pillars of Farm to School: the cafeteria, classroom, and community. A networking fair featured 26 community-based organizations, providing teachers with valuable opportunities to connect with local partners and discover programs that can support food and nutrition education in their schools.

The Community Gardens Soil Testing Program, coordinated by Cornell Cooperative Extension Harvest NY, in partnership with the NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets and the Cornell Soil Health Lab, allows food-growing community and home gardeners to test their soil at no cost. This comprehensive soil test includes a nutrient profile, pH, and heavy metals results report, which is especially useful for the urban growers who participate in this program. Heavy metals, such a lead, are a soil contaminant of concern for urban growers, who often grow in areas near industry, potential contaminants, and spaces previously used for other non-gardening activities. Technical assistance on testing results is provided by Harvest NY specialists.

The program has closed for 2026 program year, as applications have exceeded 400!

A grant fund, multi-state initiative will provide practical, farm-focused technical assistance to agritourism operations in New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia to improve accessibility for visitors with disabilities while reducing human, legal, and operational risks. Recognizing that every disability presents unique needs, the project emphasizes flexible, cost-effective solutions that help farms create safer, more welcoming environments for all visitors. By translating accessibility standards into practical farm management strategies, including improvements to signage, pathways, communication, staff training, and visitor policies, this project will help producers strengthen risk management, improve customer service, reduce potential liability, and expand market opportunities.

The Seed to Supper program is a free, comprehensive beginning vegetable gardening curriculum designed for adults gardening on a budget as a way to build confidence and skills need to grow a portion of their own food. This program was adopted by Cornell Cooperative Extension as a shared program of Oregon Food Bank’s Learning Gardens in 2021 but had not yet been made accessible to the five boroughs within New York City.

In February 2026, Community Garden Leadership Specialist Makela Elvy became a Seed to Supper (S2S) coordinator to make the opportunity available across the five boroughs within the city limit. On May 23, the seven-week pilot program began with nine participants and three volunteer educators supporting the program. To add to the S2S existing curriculum, Elvy partnered with several local gardens, providing the participants with practical experience to pair with the written curriculum and build a connection to multiple community gardens within the borough, increasing garden visibility. Additional modifications to the program include season extension, cover cropping and cooking demonstrations which enable the program to be impactful during the spring, summer and fall seasons.

New York farmers are increasingly challenged by heat stress, extreme precipitation, drought, flooding, and other climate-related risks that affect productivity, profitability, and long-term farm viability. Addressing these challenges requires more than access to weather and climate data—it requires practical, science-based tools that help farmers identify locally-relevant risks, evaluate adaptation and mitigation options, and make informed management decisions. During the second quarter of 2026, the Harvest NY Ag Climate Resilience Program advanced several interconnected efforts designed to strengthen climate resilience across New York agriculture.

New York City’s commercial urban farmers operate in a uniquely challenging environment: extreme growing conditions, limited peer networks, and pest and disease pressures that often differ from what statewide extension resources are built to address. Timely, locally relevant, scientifically grounded information has historically been hard to come by for urban farmers.

In 2019, Harvest New York Urban Agriculture Specialists Sam Anderson and Yolanda Gonzalez launched the NYC Urban Growers Update (initially called the “Market Growers Update”) to fill that gap, building the mailing list and format from scratch. The newsletter targets commercial urban growers with production-focused content: pest and disease alerts, crop planning resources, research updates, and program announcements. The pest and disease section functions as an early-warning system, drawing on real-time field observations, diagnostic samples, and reports from growers across the five boroughs to get actionable information out to farmers before pest and disease outbreaks get out of hand. As a farm manager in Staten Island reported: “We build our whole IPM plan around those updates.”

The Bronx Biochar Project continued to expand during the second quarter, evolving into a broader initiative encompassing technical training, public education, interdisciplinary collaboration, and community capacity building.

Hands-on training continued at New Roots Community Farm. Following independent practice burns, Joseph trained Farm Manager Onasis Cirineo in feedstock preparation, kiln operation, ignition techniques, flame management, quenching procedures, and biochar quality. This progression from learner to practitioner to instructor reflected a deliberate approach to building local technical capacity. By June 11, Onasis was independently performing the majority of the biochar production process.

Public outreach increased through Harvest NY Urban Community Gardens Specialist Kwesi Joseph's presentations on nutrient upcycling and urban soil health.