One farmer's effort to working the land, now and for the future

Warwick dairy farmer among the first in New York to use state’s PDR program Warwick — Tunis Sweetman is a rare breed. This first-generation farmer has spent half of his 44 years farming. More than half, if you count the time he spent in ag programs here at Warwick Valley High School and while he majored in agriculture at the State University of New York at Delhi. Sweetman didn’t inherit farming, like many who own family farms. Although his father, Tunis Sr., did work on a farm when Sweetman was a kid, he is essentially a first-generation farmer. What attracted him is what still keeps him here today: “I saw what a great industry agriculture was throughout New York State.” But it was tough starting out. Sweetman didn’t own his own farm. Instead, he rented farm land. He realized if he wanted to grow his business, he had to buy a farm. “It was important we buy a base farm,” he said. So, when one of the farms he was renting went up for sale, Sweetman jumped at the chance. But anyone who knows anything about land in Warwick knows that buying it is expensive. Buying 110 acres of it is, well, not within reach for many. What Sweetman did was look at alternatives. One alternative was the state’s Purchase of Development Rights program. “We were the first farm in Orange County and one of the first in the state to use the state’s program,” said Sweetman. What he did was buy the farm at market value and then sold the development rights through the state’s program. “For me personally, it enabled us to purchase the base farm,” said Sweetman. “Our only other alternative was to uproot and relocate to a less expensive area.” Having the base farm — Sweetman still rents an additional 550 acres — allowed him to expand his business. He now has 200 milking cows. He built a state-of-the-art facility on County Route 1 big enough to house his lot. And it has the latest in milking technology. PDR, according to Sweetman, allowed him to keep his farming business in his home town. It allowed him to actually buy a farm and bring it up to the standards necessary to be competitive in today’s market. “We were locked in before PDR,” said Sweetman. “We had expanded as far as we were able to. Our situation was unique — we didn’t own a farm. For those who do, PDR is an incentive to sell their development rights but still own the farm. They can slow down a little and still work the farm.”