Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: At Great New York State Fair, Governor Hochul Announces Tourism and Agricultural Milestones for New York State

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced at the 2024 Great New York State Fair that one year after signing Executive Order 32, New York State agencies and authorities have surpassed the state’s first year goal of five percent to nearly 15 percent. Governor Hochul signed the Executive Order on Opening Day of the 2023 Great New York State Fair, directing State agencies to increase the percentage of food sourced from New York farmers and producers to 30 percent of their total purchases within five years. Governor Kathy Hochul also announced that New York welcomed a record-setting 306.3 million visitors in 2023, while also setting new historic highs for direct visitor spending and total economic impact associated with the state's tourism industry. Visitors to New York State contributed to a record-high $88 billion in direct spending, and supported a historic $137 billion in total economic impact across the state.

VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of the Governor's remarks is available here.

PHOTOS of the event are available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Hello, my friends. Yes, the 2024 Syracuse State Fair has arrived. We are fired up. We wait all year long for this spectacular event and I want to thank all of you. We have some of our friends in the Assembly and the Senate. I appreciate all your support. Especially our local leaders. We have the Mayor of the City of Syracuse, Ben Walsh. Great to see him here. Did you bring the kids this time? All right. Later. I really enjoy his children.

Our Commissioner Ball, he is someone who is such a passionate fighter, advocate for our farmers across the state. I've so enjoyed our relationship, but when I see him in action and the respect that he has earned over many years of service. Let's give him a round of applause, Commissioner Richard Ball.

And Julie LaFave, our new State Fair Director. Well done, Julie. Talk about women in power. I'm just in awe of the size of this crowd, first of all. I thought it would be a couple of people in the room, so I'm just kind of absorbing this. Many of my Cabinet members are here, and I'll be spending much of the day with them.

And I treasure their service and their friendships. And today's a really special day for me, and you may not know this, but I absolutely love fairs. It is hard to keep me away from a fair, and what I thought was important this year, though, is that we acknowledge the fact that the United Nations General Council, right here General Assembly, right here in the state of New York, declared 2026 as the International Year of the Woman Farmer. About time to get some recognition, right ladies?

I don't think anybody would know this, but 22,000 women own or help run farms here in the state of New York. That's a huge number, and people from other states or just happen to only spend a lot of time downstate, which is great as well, they would have no idea that one quarter of our landmass is agricultural, 7 million acres is agricultural.

I mean that's phenomenal. That's right up there with other states. I could go through that whole long list that I look at all the time of where we're top one, two, or three in different agricultural outputs. I don't think people think of us in those terms, but I do. I know what this means to our economy and to know that there are so many women driving this who are finally getting the recognition they deserve, is something that I've long wanted to do.

And it's also — we know that this is such an important epicenter of families. I mean so many, I can't tell you the families I've met. It's generational. It's a love of land. It's the opportunity to just be with their families connected. One time I met five generations, all at once, of people who are still working on our farms. And we have to do everything we can to make it easier for them. And I want to continue focusing on them as we continue our legislation.

I've also spent time at fairs as a child. My very first public speech was at the Erie County Fair, which I was at last week. 4-H here. Anybody love 4-H here? Yes, indeed. Ten years old, told we had to demonstrate how we could do something. I couldn't do a whole lot. I was ten years old. I used to babysit a lot. But they said, well, maybe you could demonstrate how to make a healthy, refreshing drink. Sure, I do that all the time. So I learned all about how to make this smoothie.

I was kind of ahead of my time. Everybody does healthy smoothies now, right? Banana orange frosted. I can still tell you the ingredients, because I had to put it on my poster and talk to, what I thought was going to be a huge crowd. I was a little nervous. I think it was my mom, my brother, my sister, and maybe two people wandered by like, what is this person talking about?

But it gave me that opportunity just to get out of my comfort zone. And that's why I love programs, especially for young women, like Future Farmers of America. Look at what they've done to cultivate the next generation of leaders, young men and women. But also our 4-H programs, all those programs. I just want to say, that could have been the first time I actually felt confident in doing something. When I walked away from – you're nervous going up, you walk away and say, “I did that.” So I will always be grateful to my fairs and, and that organization for giving me that opportunity.

And little did I know that someday I would be at the Syracuse State Fair, the oldest State Fair in America, right? Did we get that out there? Oldest State Fair in America. And celebrating the contributions of women. It was not far from here. Seneca Falls, just down the road. 1848, where women who were so sick and tired of just being the property of the men, they stood up and said, “We have rights.” 300 brave women and the men who would support them – courageous souls themselves. And that set us on a different course of history. So to step back today and know that we're here to honor women is also a special, historic significance because it is long overdue.

We've continued to support our farmers. I want to just give you some statistics. Last year, those of you who were here, know I signed Executive Order 32, which directed our state agencies — yes, they could have been doing this all along, but now they're doing it – to increase their purchasing of locally made products.

Right now, well, before we did this, state agencies were purchasing about almost $15 million of local goods across the state. You know what we did last year as a result of me signing this? $78 million worth of products from our local farmers to support our state agencies and their consumers.

We had a goal the first year of 5 percent, we actually went up to 15 percent. I want to get to 30 percent because I'm always about raising the bar. Sorry everybody, we're raising the bar high. And our farmers are going to benefit from this. It's a $145 million annual benefit to our farmers. That's extraordinary. That's extraordinary. I'm really proud of that.

Also, last week, I signed a bill – direct to consumer shipping for New York spirits and cider. Donna Lupardo. It's a huge opportunity for our growing craft industry. This is a fun industry. I will not go any further. It's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. And the State Fair is a place we can showcase all this.

So, I just want to tell you how proud I am to celebrate our farmers, our growers, our livestock breeders, the culture, the diversity, the food, this fair and our farms that are connected to it. This is just spectacular. And we're continuing to increase the number of people coming to our fair. We expect to hit a million after this week. I know we had a couple rainy days, we had a cancellation of a concert, we'll make up for that. But I know they're going to keep coming because this is a place you build family memories. This is where you connect families.

I will never forget those early days going to the Erie County fair. Again, when I visited not too long ago, just a few weeks ago, I said, “This is where my childhood really blossomed.” The freedom you have, the exposure you have to so many sites and sounds that really develops our children and families in such a healthy, connected way.

And also, we are really just exceeding records when it comes to drawing people to our state. This is a huge attraction for us, but this, in addition to all of our other attractions — I'm going to give you this new number, just releasing it, a record setting 306 million visitors came to New York State last year alone. 306 million people. And fortunately for us, they spent $88 billion. So keep coming, keep spending. Come everywhere, come to the fair.

So I want to thank everybody. We're going to get out there. We're going to do a lot of things. I'm going to be eating sausage like I'm supposed to do, because it's a bad look if you don't. So, I'm going to eat a lot of sausage. I have all my favorites, I can't wait to see our butter sculpture and walk around. I'm always going to be finding my maple syrup producers and going to sign some legislation.