Assemblyman Steve Hawley has written to Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie requesting increased funding for County Cooperative Extension (CCE) Associations, which haven’t seen a funding increase in more than 20 years.

CCEs are statewide organizations that are actively engaged in their communities in fundamental areas of agriculture and nutrition sciences as well as youth development and leadership, including 4-H programming, economic development and community and environmental progress.

“We are requesting your support for an increase in the overall funding to the CCE system from $3.9 million to a total statewide amount of $8 million which would support all CCE county associations,” Hawley wrote in the letter.

“With increased funding the CCE system will be better able to proactively respond to local emerging necessities in the area of food system support. In addition, it will better leverage county funding and competing grant support for all communities.

“Additionally, funding will help generate research-based environmental justice projects related to urban agriculture.”

Hawley is a longtime member of the Assembly Agriculture Committee, former owner and operator of his family farm in Batavia, Hawley Farms, and is a past president of the Genesee County Farm Bureau.