Hoosac Valley Farmers’ Exchange — a feed mill, fertilizer mill, and agricultural store — is celebrating its centennial — and returning to its roots.

The exchange, located in Schagticoke, serves farmers in New York — including in Albany County — Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, said Jacob Shaw, who works for the exchange.

The business, owned by Maureen and Eric Mayer of Copses Farm in Schaghticoke, features an exchange of products as well as an exchange of ideas, serving large commercial farms as well as backyard farmers.

“Farmers came together in the 1920s because they wanted to do something to help with buying power and with selling power,” said Shaw. “So they grouped the resources into one and made the exchange.”

“We’re trying to bring in more young people,” Shaw told The Enterprise this week. “We’re looking at internship programs and we’re bringing in new product lines. There’s a lot more homesteading now, a lot more cannabis growing, a lot of wine breweries,” he said.

While the exchange still serves large farms with experienced farmers at the helm, there’s a growing market for new, small farms.

“With egg prices insane, a lot of people got into raising chickens,” said Shaw. “Then, if you get the chickens, you get a goat, and then they would get a sheep.”

Shaw serves as a mentor to these new farmers.

“I’ve been involved in ag since I was like a very small kid,” he said. He grew up in Maine where his family raised apples and moved to Voorheesville when he was 10. After graduating from Voorheesville’s high school, Shaw went to the State University of New York College of Agriculture and Technology at Cobleskill.

He teaches new farmers with small plots how to best use their resources. “Let’s say they have a half-acre backyard and they come in and they want a cow … I would tell them, ‘You can’t do a cow but you can do chickens.’ And then we’d walk through what they need, what kind of hutch, what kind of fencing, what kind of feed, what kind of care,” he said.

Shaw cited one couple that “couldn’t raise anything … it just kept dying on them. They were being sold chemicals,” he said. “I said, ‘Before we sell you anything, let’s do a soil test … and figure out what the problem is.’”

The exchange also works with hunting groups. “We’re finding ways to bring in more native seeds and long-term help for deer plots,” said Shaw.

He explained, “You make a deer plot to draw whitetail in, which is completely legal, nothing against doing it. But the thinking is, you have to redo it every year.”

Shaw went on, “We’re trying to find ways to make it more environmentally friendly. We’re getting in trees that have fruit that deer like that will grow year after year so you’re not always replanting. And we’re trying to find ways to minimize the cost of doing it and the environmental cost of doing it.”

Native plants, he noted, don’t need fertilizer.

This year, the exchange will be providing prizes for 4-H winners at the Altamont Fair, Shaw said. “I’m going to give each kid a bag of grain,” said Shaw, who was once in 4-H himself. “So each kid has something even if they don’t win. If they come in and show an animal, they get something.”

Similarly, Shaw said, the exchange has something for everyone.

“We can feed horses, cows, beef animals, chickens, ducks, llamas, sheep, goats, whatever you want us to feed,” he said.

Shaw went on, “If someone needs a new fence, we have all the fencing equipment, drainage stuff, outdoor furnaces, indoor furnaces, boots, clothing, vegetable plants, topsoil, calf hutches, and other buildings for farms.”

Shaw noted, “Locally, more and more people are getting out of ag.”

Between 2012 and 2022, New York state lost close to 14 percent of its farms and over 9 percent of farmland, more than the national average.

“The number of dairy farms year after year is shrinking,” said Shaw. “The number of farms in New York state year after year is shrinking. So what we’re trying to do is find ways to get everyone more involved in ag.”

Shaw concluded, “As food prices are going up, we’re trying to find ways that you can supplement your income … You can get back to your roots.”