N.Y. Agriculture & Markets Law § 3: Declaration of policy and purposes

§ 3. Declaration of policy and purposes. The agricultural industry is

basic to the life of our state. It vitally concerns and affects the

welfare, health, economic well-being and productive and industrial

capabilities of all our people. It is the policy and duty of the state

to promote, foster, and encourage the agricultural industry, with proper

standards of living for those engaged therein; to design and establish

long-range programs for its stabilization and profitable operation; to

increase through education, research, regulation, and scientific means,

the quantity, quality, and efficiency of its production; to improve its

marketing system; to encourage adequate and skilled assistance for

agricultural enterprises; to maintain at fair prices uncontrolled by

speculation the instrumentalities and products of agriculture; to remove

unnecessary or unfair costs and obstacles in the transportation,

storage, processing, distribution, marketing, and sale of agricultural

products; to prevent frauds in the traffic therein; to promote an

expanded demand for the state's agricultural products and the

intelligent uses thereof by consumers as pure and wholesome food; to

protect the public health and to eliminate the evils of

under-nourishment; to encourage the selection and consumption of food

according to sound dietary and nutritional principles; to improve our

citizens' overall health and to combat the increasing incidence of adult

and childhood obesity; and to make our people conscious of the bond of

mutual self-interest between our urban and our rural populations.

Accordingly, all laws enacted concerning the agricultural industry and

its allied subjects, whether included in this chapter or not, are to be

deemed an exercise of the police power of the state and a discharge of

its obligations for the promotion of the general welfare through

state-wide laws and regulations, local initiative and government,

cooperative action between groups and localities, home-rule measures,

individual enterprise, civic consciousness, and appropriate coordination

with the federal government and as between educational research

institutions within the state.

Such laws and all governmental measures adopted pursuant thereto

should receive a liberal interpretation and application in furtherance

of the aforesaid policy and purposes.