Schumer Will Urge Feds To Work On Offering The Malting Barley Endorsement To NYS To Increase Protection Available For NYS Growers; Earlier This Year, Senator Successfully Pushed USDA To Provide Malt Barley Crop Insurance For 44 NYS Counties Including Columbia County
Senator Will Say Capital Region Now Needs USDA’s Special Malt Barley Endorsement To Keep Up With Upstate’s Craft Beverage Growth
Schumer: Capital Region Could Become The Napa Valley Of Craft Beer
(Chatham, NY) – HAPPENING TODAY AT 1:30 PM, standing at Chatham Brewing, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer will say craft breweries and distilleries like those in Columbia County have been booming, this season, pouring local products onto shelves, increasing tourism and infusing new jobs in the Capital Region and across Upstate New York. Which is why, Senator Schumer will say it is imperative that the federal government provide even more support to Upstate New York’s craft beer industry to help new and existing establishments grow. Specifically, Schumer will urge the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to work on giving New York the Malting Barley Endorsement (M.B.E.), a special federal insurance option, available to only a select group of states that grow malt barley. Schumer will say Malt barley needs very specific conditions to grow and is susceptible to severe weather and disease, making the M.B.E. insurance option an essential ingredient to further nurture the growth of this new industry in the Capital Region and beyond. Schumer will say that this will become more important over the next decade, when New York State will require farm craft brewers and distillers to source 90 percent of their ingredients from local farms and malt houses, and the supply of malt barley will need to increase to meet this demand.
Schumer will be joined by Tom Crowell, one of the owners of Chatham Brewing, Mayor Tom Curran, John Curtin of Albany Distilling and Rachel Czub, who plans to open a “grain hub” in the Capital Region.