STEPHENTOWN, N.Y. (NEWS10) — The Farm Workers Bill was signed into law by Governor Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday.

Set to take effect on January 1, 2020, it gives farm workers a 60-hour work week and requires overtime rates.

Dale-Ila Riggs, owner of the Berry Patch in Stephentown, is worried about how the law will effect her small, first generation farm.

“The bill is absolutely devastating to people like us that have eight weeks a year to make 70 percent of our income for the year,” Riggs told NEWS10 ABC.

Owner of The Berry Patch in Stephentown fears for her business due to new farm labor laws in NY.

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Riggs says she won’t be able to compete with farms in Massachusetts, a state just 200 yards from her berry farm.

“While anyone here in New York State is going to be paying $20 an hour or more to berry pickers for over 60 hours a week, 200 yards away they’re paying $12 an hour,” Riggs explained. “So how is somebody that is living right on the border of the states that surround us going to be able to compete?”

Riggs wrote a letter to Governor Cuomo with three alternatives to the bill that she considers “win-wins.” She says he did not take her suggestions.

Jeff Williams from the New York Farm Bureau says they’ve always had concerns about the bill but especially recently.

“There was a study that said the bill would cost farmers an additional $300 million a year, which is an industry that is already hurting,” Williams told NEWS10.

He said they participated in legislative hearings, but at the end of the day when the bill was ultimately drafted and passed, “it really wasn’t that great for farms.”

