MONTICELLO – As the USDA considers to close down its Liberty Farm Service Agency office in a consolidation move, State Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther has offered use of her Monticello district office space for meetings with farmers.

“This would provide our local farmers who rely on the FSA convenient access to services, while also accomplishing the consolidation goals of the FSA,” she wrote in a letter to USDA/New York State FSA Executive Director James Barber.

“Most farmers can’t leave their farm; they are up at the crack of dawn and they have to work all day so they really can’t travel a long distance, but yet they need these services and I thought this a great solution. It’s cost effective,” she said.

Gunther said farmers are one of Sullivan County’s “most valuable resources, [and they] face enough challenges without making access to necessary resources provided by FSA more difficult to access.”

The assemblywoman said she cleared with Albany the use of her office on an occasional basis.