Jim Barber, State Executive Director

Jim Barber was appointed by the Biden Administration to serve as the State Executive Director of the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) in New York in December 2021.

Barber returns to FSA after serving in the same role for eight years during the Obama Administration where he made policy improvements to FSA programs and made a concerted effort to reach minority farmers and underserved communities.

Prior to his appointment, Barber was the Agriculture Implementation Specialist in Otsego County for Cornell Cooperative Extension where he carried out the ag and farmland protection plan. Previously, he served two years as Special Assistant to the Commissioner in the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets.

Barber served on Senator Hillary Clinton’s Agriculture Advisory Committee, Governor Elect Eliot Spitzer’s Agricultural Transition Team, and Congressman Antonio Delgado’s Agriculture Advisory Committee. Throughout his career, he held several leadership roles for the New York Farm Bureau, New York State Vegetables Growers Association, Cornell University, Middleburgh Central School Board, Schoharie Valley Association, and the Schoharie County Chamber of Commerce. He co-founded NYFarms!, an organization that successfully created the first Farm to School program in the country and passed new legislation enabling schools to purchase directly from producers.

For 30 years Barber managed and operated his family’s sixth-generation, 500-acre, diversified vegetable and greenhouse operation in the northern Catskills of New York State. Barber and his wife transitioned the family farm from a dairy, fi eld crop, and wholesale vegetable operation to a retail vegetable and greenhouse enterprise.

Barber is a graduate of Cornell University. Barber and his wife Cindy have been married for 42 years and live in Middleburgh, New York. They have three grown children.