Hey everyone!
I hope you all had a great time with your friends and family over the holidays! I know I sure did–I was able to take an entire week off and fly home to Tennessee! I’ll admit it was hard to leave everyone again, but I’m also excited to be back–I really enjoy both places.
I know, Tennessee and New York have A LOT of differences. For example, snow. You clearly get way more snow up here than we do down South. I love it and am terrified of it all at the same time (haha). When it snows in Tennessee everything shuts down, but up here everyone just goes on like it’s nothing, which again, I think is very impressive and terrifying.
But you know, there are other differences: agricultural differences. I did a little research, and I would like to share with you some of what I found:
1) There are about 35,500 farms in New York compared to roughly 68,000 in Tennessee.
2) NY has an economic impact of around $5.4 billion a year compared to about $3.6 billion a year in TN.
3) NY has roughly 666 farmers markets where as TN only has about 125 of them.
4) Top Ag Products Sold
- NY: Dairy products, feed crops, meat animals, corn, vegetables and melons, fruits and nuts, poultry and eggs, and oil crops.
- TN: meat animals, cattle and calves, oil crops, poultry and eggs, broilers, corn, cotton, and food grains.
5) When I attended Ag In-Service back in November, I learned about a set of Ag Laws used to protect farmers from nuisance lawsuits. I had never heard of this law, and had no idea if Tennessee had anything similar. Well, it turns out that all 50 states have some form of this Right-to-Farm law! They are all worded a little differently, but deny nuisance lawsuits against farmers.
I find it incredibly interesting how one thing (for the purpose of this post, agriculture) affects places differently. And, I know that Good Ole’ Rocky Top will always be my home, but I also love the home that I am creating here.
Stay Warm,
-Kayela
East Tennessee in December. Photo courtesy of the author.
