In recent years, and especially since the pandemic, farmers have increasingly been priced out of leasing or purchasing land in the Hudson Valley, and possibly elsewhere in the state as well (Dunn, Kenny/Briga, Nevarez/Simons). These rising costs are due in part to the ongoing gentrification of traditionally agricultural areas, but especially to the pandemic-driven exodus of NYC; while many of those who fled the city have since returned, they are retaining their upstate homes as Airbnb properties (Whitman/Boric). The increasing price of rental properties in the area (Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress, Nolan) also results in less available labor for farms that cannot (or are unwilling to) provide housing for their workers, or else drives up the cost of that labor. (Whether or not farm-laborers are perennially underpaid is a separate issue.)
Apart from the numerous problems that this state of affairs causes for farmers and farm-workers themselves, I hypothesize that there is also an impact on NYC residents, since many of the farms that supply farmers’ markets in the city are located in this gentrifying region. I therefore explore the correlation between pandemic-driven gentrification of the Hudson Valley and increasing pressures on the densest regions of farms that supply NYC farmers’ markets, using data from the 5-year American Community Survey and the USDA Agriculture Census.
