Maple Task Force Findings Echo Judge Cooper’s Spirit

3-12-10

NY MAPLE TASK FORCE FINDINGS

• Provide funding for “reverse osmosis” machines to boost maple-syrup production.
• Increase number of producers.  (Only 0.5 percent of in-state maples are tapped.)
• Promote, promote, promote.  The state has secured the services of a merketing agency for this purpose.

MAPLE/From A-12
sica Ziehm, Ag & Markets spokesperson.  “We’re seeing a lot of people interested in making maple syrup.”
In recent months, more than a dozen sugarhouses in New York State have received USDA rural-development funds to buy reverse-osmosis machines.
(As Benjamin explains it, the R-O machines remove water from the sap, raising the sugar content from 2 to 10 percent.  This makes the evaporator much more efficient -- it needs five times less fuel to raise the sugar content to the optimum 67 percent.)
Plus, Ag & Markets hired an advertising firm that developed a “New York Maple” brand, with a uniform logo.  Small producers have begun feeding their supplies to large bottles, who then sell them to retailers under a common brand.
“It’s pretty exciting,” said Ziehm, who was raised on a farm in Rensselaer County where her family tapped their own trees.  (Her boss, Ag Commissioner Patrick Hooker, also taps trees on his farm north of Richfield Springs.)
“People have always thought there’s a greater opportunity in New York,” she continued, echoing Cooper.  “We do have the opportunity to grow the numbers extensively.”
Then there are maple products beyond syrup -- candy, maple butter and the like.  A agri-tourism, which the Benjamins exemplify.
Actually, Ben and Judy exemplify several of the trends Ziehm talks about.
Murray Benjamin “did everything the hard way,” said his grandnephew, who may have been turning that lesson over in his mind during the years of his career at New York Central Mutual, down the road in Edmeston.
In 1980, Ben turned those ruminations into action, buying a 25-gallon barrel hose evaporator and producing maple syrup as a hobby, primarily for his family’s use – he and Judy have two daughters, who were young then – and for gifts.
But it just grew. 
In 1985, he bought a 2-by-6-foot evaporator that churned out 75 gallons a season and, in 1990, on Ben’s retirement from New York Central Mutual ... the rest is history.