Report: Agriculture contributes $132.5B to state economy

Agriculture contributes $132.5 billion annually to the state economy and supports more than 590,000 jobs paying nearly $33 billion in wages, according to a report released in coordination with Team Pennsylvania and eConsult Solutions.

The report also makes strategic recommendations to assist the industry in a changing marketplace and analyzes eight subsectors. These include dairy production, beef production, food manufacturing, and poultry and egg production.

In addition, the report assessed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and priorities for recovery.

The last report was released in January 2018. Gov. Tom Wolf used the recommendations to write a six-point plan. This eventually led to the Pennsylvania Farm Bill of 2019.

The bill invested $37.2 million, removed regulatory burdens, and provided service support to the industry.

Proposed funding for the bill in the 2021-22 budget is $13.6 million.

“When we used the last report to support the industry with the Pennsylvania Farm Bill, we didn’t know what was coming for us in 2020,” state Secretary of Agriculture Russell Redding said. “But our efforts to proactively address the opportunities for growth and threats to success quickly strengthened the resilience of the industry and helped many producers to pivot quickly with the rapidly changing markets and demands.”