farm bill 100Million aid to maple syrup--details?????

[Jay Wechsler]

details??

[Michael Farrell]

The TAP Act is part of the new Farm Bill and has been authorized for a large sum of money, but its not yet clear what if any funds will be actually appropriated to the program. If funds do become available, it will create a small pool of grant money that will be available to states and universities on a competitive basis to implement the best projects that will help the maple industry remain competitive and sustainable in to the future. The projects could involve research, education, promotion, etc.  I highly doubt that we will see anywhere even close to 100 million, but there is a good chance that the program will receive some funding.

[Jay Wechsler]

thanks

[Susan Kaveny]

I would like to know about it, too.  I live in Southwestern Illinois.  There are hundreds of thousands of silver maples around here.  I got interested in this reading history books and there were at one time loads of sugar houses around here.  Now, there's only one that I know of, and it's really far away.  There are only a couple of studies that I've found, but the parameters of this study were too narrow, in my own opinion.

http://www.fs.fed.us/ne/newtown_square/publications/technical_repor...

As you can see from this study, it only looks at maple syrup as a value added crop for farmers.  It doesn't look at what would happen if someone were to open a sugar house and sappers who were not owners of the land did the work on shares. I consider that to be the likelier scenario. We have had around 25 days so far this fall and winter where the temperature was  above freezing in the daytime and below it at night.  We will probably have another 20 more, so the weather is agreeable to that kind of industry here.

While there are a few hobbyists, they really are few, which is why this happened:

http://modfarm.tumblr.com/post/43487873218/maple-syrup-farm-mistake...

Here is a much better study:
http://www.fs.fed.us/ne/newtown_square/publications/technical_repor...
 It was done around 120 miles south of here.  The weather is slightly different and not as well  suited to the endeavor because the weather is warmer there than it is here.