The Times Union's veteran reporter and columnist Fred LeBrun shines a light on a key element in all the state budget talks going on... New York's agricultural industry and what the Cumo cuts might do to it. "We're third in the nation in dairy production as well as in wine grape and grape juice production, second in apples, fourth in cucumbers and snap beans. We are, and have been since the American revolution, an agricultural powerhouse, if you'll forgive the seventh-grade civics lesson," Le Brun writes. "Yet, you wouldn't know it from the penny-wise approach our state government is taking with this vital industry as we careen through the budget crisis." He goes on to point out to point out the importance of tying industrial growth in all fields to ongoing research and development in universities, especially in agriculture... where for years, Cornell University's land grant college of agriculture and life sciences has been a beacon for the rest of the nation. But Le Brun quotes the New York Farm Bureau's Julie Suarez pointing out how the state's ag programs, via the Cornell Cooperative Extension and other entities, have seen up to a 90 percent decline in funding in four years that she says is "way out of proportion to other agencies and programs across government." Among things getting cut will be the state's $1 million integrated pest management program, an $800,000 pro-dairy program, which promotes profitability and competitiveness for dairy farmers, as well as funding for such organizations as the state's Apple Association, Maple Producers, Wine and Grape Foundation, Geneva Experimental Station and more. "Agriculture in this state needs a few friends to stand up and be counted, and soon," Le Brun concludes. "And by the way, there is a revolution going on, a green one: The locovore movement, stressing locally grown, locally made produce, much of it organic in the regional market place. Our farmers and wine makers, apiarists, and cheesemakers will be there, as long as we don't take their support troops away from them."