Blake Gendebien, North Country Dairy Farmer and NY-21 Candidate, Hosts Affordability Roundtable
April 8, 2026
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, April 8, 2026
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Blake Gendebien, North Country Dairy Farmer and NY-21 Candidate, Hosts Affordability Roundtable
Gendebien hosted nearly nine community members at his dairy farm in Lisbon
LISBON, N.Y. — Yesterday, North Country dairy farmer and Democratic candidate for NY-21 Blake Gendebien brought together a bipartisan group of farmers, small business owners, and agriculture experts to highlight how rising costs are hitting North Country families from the farm gate to the dinner plate.
With gas prices and fertilizer costs skyrocketing, participants made clear that the affordability crisis starts long before consumers reach the checkout line. Many pointed to strained trade relationships with Canada and broader global instability as key drivers making it harder for North Country producers to stay competitive, and pushing prices higher for everyone.
“When these input costs go up on the farm, they don’t just disappear. They either crush our local farmers or they get passed on to people shopping at the grocery store,” said Gendebien. “None of these outcomes are acceptable.”
Farmers described an increasingly unsustainable reality, where the numbers simply no longer add up. Over the last decade, the North Country has lost hundreds of dairy farms and small businesses from rising costs.
“I’m looking at losing about $80 per acre before I’ve even started, before I factor in my known costs,” said Jim Curtis, a crop farmer in the St. Lawrence Valley. “I’m small-scale, and we’ve done many things to try to adapt. But there’s only so much you can do to absorb these expenses, and I can’t do everything in a regenerative fashion. I just don’t have the resources.”
The discussion underscored a central problem in Washington: too few leaders understand how policy decisions actually impact rural communities.
“There are not enough people that understand what life is like in rural America in DC,” said Gendebien. “We need someone who understands it from the inside, who’s lived it, and who’s going to fight to get the policies right.”
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