Empire Agriculture Map

The Empire Agriculture Map is an interactive tool created to allow for exploration and education about the diverse agriculture, food, and natural resource systems of New York State. With over 30,000 farms on 6.5 million acres of cropland, timberland, pasture, fisheries, and even repurposed factories and rooftops, agriculture is one of the top economic sectors in the state providing nearly 8 billion dollars to the New York State economy each year.

As students participate with the Empire Agriculture Map resource, they will gain a local perspective on what makes their community and region unique and gain a broader perspective of the diversity of food, fiber, and natural resources in our state. The number of ways students can interact with the Empire Agriculture Map are many, with the hope that students will understand and can communicate the source and value of agriculture in our daily lives.

The map is also a teacher resource which allows teachers to engage students with agriculture education as they teach core standard based content, engage their students in cross-curricular and project-based learning opportunities, and/or work with their peers to provide students cross content area educational opportunities.

Map Focus

The map was designed to capture the diversity of New York agriculture and unique growing regions of New York state. Identified agricultural products and counties were selected for their levels of production at the state and national levels. Counties that are identified on the map with an icon for their production were selected as being one of the top producing counties of a given agricultural product, with lower producing counties of the product omitted.

By identifying the top producing counties and agricultural products, the user of the map is able to more easily identify the diverse array of agricultural products produced in the state as well as more clearly recognize the unique regions in the state that specialize in the production of an identified agricultural product.

Regions Focus

The regional maps of the Empire Agriculture Map Resource were created using data from the 2022 USDA National Agricultural Statistic Service Census (NASS) and from agriculturalists and agricultural agencies and organizations from across New York State.

Attributes which were considered when developing the regions are location, climate, geography, soil, topography, precipitation, availability of agricultural lands vs. developed vs. state lands, and plant hardiness zones. These identified factors determine the production or lack of production of agricultural products in a given region.

The agricultural products identified in each county are identified in the NASS census as being the top five produced agricultural products by sales in the county. In instances that there is little to no agriculture produced in a county, the data section will show "no data" or have bulleted multiple agricultural products.

USDA's National Agriculture Statistic Service (NASS)

The NASS census is a national census compiled every five years and is used to identify agricultural trends at the national, state, and county levels. Data from the census was utilized when creating the Empire Agriculture Map.

About the Agricultural Product Artist

In 2020, NYAITC challenged New York Students to create unique works of art for 26 of the top produced agricultural products in the state. With over 1,000 unique works of art submitted by over 100 artists, Sarah Hofmeister of Stockbridge Valley Central School was selected as the top artist. Her works are featured as the icons on the Empire Agriculture Map.

For Sarah, art has been a lifelong influence in her life. According to Sarah she, "loved drawing since as long as I can remember". Sarah's art is greatly influenced by the Impressionist style, and she prefers to work in oil paints and oil pastels.

Sarah is intrigued by the human figure and loves to draw portraits. She enjoys the calm and beauty of nature and uses her photography as a means of capturing images that inspire her.

When prompted about what motivates her, Sarah responded, "I have a passion for human rights, and I am a strong animal rights advocate."

Sarah's is looking to her future career in an art related field with a strong interest in fashion design.

Partners

The Interactive Empire Agriculture Map was developed to create a foundational understanding of and drive inquiry-based learning about the food and fiber networks of New York State. Development of the resource is ongoing. Future development will be focused on more fully capturing New York State agriculture as staff and funding resources become available.

Individuals or organizations who would like partner with us to help support future development of the Empire Agriculture Map resources and experiences can contact us at: nyaitc@cornell.edu. NYAITC is grateful to our partners, identified below, who have donated their time, resources, leadership, and funding to help further develop the Empire Agriculture Map resources. Together we are able to further foster awareness, understanding, and appreciation of how we produce food and fiber, what we eat, and how we live, by helping educators, students, and their communities learn about and engage with agriculture and food and fiber systems. Please click the icons to learn more about our partners.