Agriculture
The Opportunity
Agriculture is foundational to Pennsylvania’s economy contributing $132.5B in annual economic impact and supporting 593,600 jobs across the commonwealth. It is also at the nexus of the most critical conversations of our time regarding food supply, climate, energy, and human, animal, and environmental health.
Advanced Agriculture, or tech-enabled approaches for growing and processing food with the intention of higher quality, increased efficiency, and reduced impact on the environment, presents a path to transform our economy, elevate industry, and sustain and create jobs throughout our state.
State leaders must work together to prioritize tech-enabled advancement for food and agriculture industries accordingly.
Pennsylvania Advanced Agriculture Cross-Sector Collaborative
Launched in April 2023, this statewide network brings together leaders from industry, government, organized labor, nonprofits, and academia to create the conditions for innovative, technological, and market-driven solutions that will bolster agriculture as a legacy industry in Pennsylvania’s economy while sustaining and creating jobs.
The Collaborative is a:
Currently, the collaborative is focused on accelerating developments in “Advanced Agriculture”, which includes:
The Collaborative meets quarterly to advance action on its priorities, with action team meetings between quarterly meetings as necessary to drive the work.
Ready to be involved or interested in learning more about our current priorities? Contact Kelly Kundratic, Agriculture Policy Director at agriculture@teampa.com.
Agriculture Economic Impact Studies
In 2018, we released the “Pennsylvania Agriculture: A Look at the Economic Impact and Future Trends” report – a first-of-its-kind analysis that provided a state-level working definition of ‘agriculture’, quantified economic and workforce impacts, and outlined policy and industry recommendations for a thriving future.
The analysis was updated in 2021 to benchmark trends for industry subsectors, as well as examine the impact of programs from the Pennsylvania Farm Bill and the COVID-19 pandemic. This version of the report provided leaders with recommendations on critical next steps for economic recovery.
This type of third-party, nonpartisan data advances Pennsylvania’s economy by identifying high-growth economic opportunities for the state and informing long-term systems change. As such, we will continue to assess the economic impact of agriculture to benchmark industry progress and identify areas primed for public-private partnership.