Farming has been a way of life for many in Chautauqua County for as long as there has been a Chautauqua County.

That way of life is increasingly difficult, as we were all reminded recently when news broke that Refresco, a grape processing plant located on Talcott Street in Dunkirk, is ending its relationship with 126 grape growers throughout the region.

Officials with the Lake Erie Regional Grape Project have known since the end of the 2025 grape harvest that growers need to make changes. Jennifer Phillips Russo, Cornell Lake Erie Regional Grape Program Team Leader and Viticulture Specialist, told The Post-Journal that her the local industry processor group, grape growers, New York Farm Bureau representatives and research colleagues met with Sam Filler, president of the New York Wine and Grape Foundation Industry, late in 2025 to discuss the structural challenges facing the Concord and Niagara juice sector and the need of a coordinated, data-driven strategic framework moving forward. Those attending also discussed mobilizing to address the downturn of the grape industry and how to plan for the future.

The future is here earlier than anyone thought it would be. We’re now scrambling for a response. We have grape growers in the north county who are ready to plant, but have no idea if there is someone who will buy their grapes at the end of the year. This is news that is as concerning for the north county as all the water evaporating out of Chautauqua Lake overnight would be for the south county.

We’ve written over the years about the shrinking agricultural sector of our economy.There were actually some promising signs in the most recent U.S. Agriculture Department Agriculture Census released in 2024. The number of family farms increased from 2017 to 2020 from 1,228 to 1,291, though dairy farms decreased from 182 to 109. Farms with beef cows increased 247 to 279 as some dairy farms added beef cows to diversify their operations. Acres in farmland increased from 223,634 to 229,885.

The results of the next census will be interesting, though. In the years since the last Census of Agriculture, the state has implemented overtime for farmworkers, which increases the costs of doing business for all farms – including the north county’s grape farms. Increasing state environmental regulations and increased requirements for things like farmworker housing haven’t helped. Fertilizer costs have exploded since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and are increasing again with the U.S. attacks on Iran. And farms aren’t immune to the economic pressures we all see on just about everything we buy these days. Dairy farms have struggled to get a fair price for their goods and to secure markets for milk for years. Now, many grape growers in the north county face a similar problem with their grapes.

The 2024 release of the Census of Agriculture feels like it came out in the 1980s rather than 2024. Agriculture remains an important business for Chautauqua County – and it’s about time for that industry to get some good news.