File Photo State Sen. George Borrello pictured.

State Sen. George Borrello, R-Sunset Bay, is co-sponsoring legislation that would make it easier for farmers to get their crops to markets and processing plants.

Bills have been introduced in both houses of the state Legislature (A.9276/S.8761) by Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo, D-Binghamton and chairwoman of the Assembly’s Agriculture Committee, and Sen. James Skoufis, D-Cornwall, to exempt farmers from commercial driver’s license requirements while operating a covered farm vehicle.

The change in law would provide an exemption from CDL for farm owners and farm employees hauling their own farm equipment and products without an F or G endorsement on their license. The exemption is something the state Farm Bureau has been lobbying state legislators to adopt. Several other states, including Wisconsin, Maryland, Ohio, Texas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma and Mississippi, have similar exemptions.

“There is a shortage of Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) truck drivers nationally, and in New York state. The CDL driver shortage has been particularly difficult for farmers who are dependent upon drivers to transport perishable products in a timely manner. Farmers who are unable to have a driver available face the prospect of crops spoiling and lost revenue,” Skoufis and Lupardo said in their legislative memorandum.

Borrello has signed on as a co-sponsor on another Skoufis and Lupardo bill aimed at helping farmers more easily get crops from the farm to processors or markets. A.9666/S.8762 would have the state Transportation Department implement a safety checkpoint system so that trucks only have to stop at safety checkpoints once a day. The state Farm Bureau has backed the plan, saying multiple stops a day at safety checkpoints make it more difficult to transport goods such as livestock, poultry, bees and other perishable commodities.

“Truck drivers transporting agricultural products to market are faced with unique challenges due to the nature of the items being transported,” Lupardo and Skoufis wrote in their legislative justification. “Requiring these trucks to have to stop at multiple safety inspections in the same day adds unnecessary stress on livestock and potential spoilage of produce, while providing no additional safety to highway travelers. This legislation would require DOT to establish a program which would allow for trucks to only have to go through one safety inspection a day rather than having to stop multiple times a day. This change would allow products to be transported in a more timely and efficient manner.”