Numbers quoted below are from the 2004 Keep Farming study and do not include all land and animals in the town.
There are about 33,500 acres in Chatham.
Dairy
Produce
Sheep
Horse
Alpaca
“The number of farms nationwide declined by 1% between 1987 and 1997, while the land in farms declined by 4.3%. During the same period, Columbia County saw an 18% decrease in the number of farms and a 14% decrease in the amount of acreage being farmed.”
The Independent, April 23, 2004
"Keep Farming is an intensive two-phase, 18 month collaborative process. Glynwood piloted this program in Butler County, PA, originally and recently initiated a second pilot in Chatham, NY, in the upper Hudson Valley. Both communnities used the Keep Farming program to supplement their town's comprehensive planning process."
Kellogg Food and Society Networking Conference, Remarks by Judith M. LaBelle, President, Glynwood Center
"Throughout the United States, small and mid-size farms are disappearing at an alarming rate. In part, this is due to the rise of large scale, corporate agriculture, but it is also the result of escalating land values, competing land uses, low wholesale prices, financial barriers and lack of markets for produce from smaller farm operations."
Keep Farming Program Overview, Glynwood Center
"New York farmland is being developed at an alarming rate. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, more than 130,000 acres of farmland were developed in New York between 1992 and 1997. During that period, New York State ranked 13th in the nation in the amount of farmland developed."
American Farmland Trust, New York's Farmland Protection Program, 2003 Fact Sheet
"Studies of towns in New York found that an average of 29 cents from every farm property tax dollar went to provide services to farm parcels, resulting in a tax surplus from farmland of 71 cents. Residences, on the other had, do not pay enough to offset their costs and require an additional 27 cents for every dollar of revenue they generate."
American Farmland Trust