MALONE — Round hay bales that resemble giant marshmallows look harmless, but the plastic wrap around them poses problems for farmers.

Storing the plastic once it's been removed requires a lot of space, which most farming operations can't spare.

Burning the leftover plastic is out of the question because of the toxins expelled into the air and water.

Burying it covers the problem, but it doesn't solve it.

And paying to dispose of it at a landfill is too expensive.

Cornell Cooperative Extension of Franklin County is doing what it can to help by sponsoring a demonstration as part of its annual Farm Bureau tour from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday.

Four area agricultural stops will be made, including to the Shipman farm in Burke, where a special plastic baler on loan from Clinton County and the Champlain Watershed Improvement Coalition of New York will be set up.

WIND AND FARMS
The first tour destination is the Mallette farm in Chateaugay, which has oats and hay for cash crops. It is also home to several windmills erected by Noble Environmental Power, said Bernadette Logozar, agriculture-education specialist with Cooperative Extension.

"We're going to hear how much their farm has been impacted by the windmills, if they have been affected or not affected by them being there."

BALER DEMONSTRATION
The Shipman farm in Burke is a 450-cow dairy farm that has a greenhouse barn and more, along with the baling demonstration.

The baler, part of the Recycling Agriculture Plastics Project, is towed on a small trailer to different sites across several counties, where piles of loose plastic sheets emerge as large, neat cubes, said Logozar.

Five pickup truck loads of plastic bale wrap make two of the 38-by-38-by-38-inch cubes, and it takes 40 of those 1,000- to 1,200-pound bales to fill a tractor trailer.

Bunker-cover plastic — which are the sheets that cover feed piles stored in L-shaped cement structures and held down by old tires — is thicker, and it takes less plastic to make each bale.

The full trailer then heads to one of two markets in the state, where the plastic can be turned into other useful products, such as packing pellets, fence posts, decking and animal-pen liners, said Chastity Miller, director of the Franklin County Soil and Water Conservation district.

She said smaller farms, which may not have big loads to purge, can bring their plastics to the Franklin County Highway Department for storage in an out-of-service Public Transportation bus until there is enough to bale.

FARM EQUIPMENT
The third tour stop is at Giroux Brothers farm-equipment dealership in Malone.

"We're going to hear about the changes in their business and the ag industry," Logozar said, adding that the number of farms in Franklin County increased 13 percent between 2002 and 2007.

Farming "looks a little different now," she said. "Farms are diversified, and the dealers are getting requests and demands for different equipment, like smaller tractors.

"Yet, at the same time, they still have to carry the bigger equipment for the other farmers, and that helps locally. You didn't have a place to go locally 10 or 20 years ago.

"It's good to keep business in the area and for the farming community," she said.

MEAT PLANT
The final destination is the Glazier Meat Products plant in Malone, where the tour participants will have lunch and learn about the operation that is transitioning into the next generation of production.

E-mail Denise A. Raymo at: draymo@pressrepublican.com