Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Celebrates the Opening of the 2026 Great New York State Fair

Governor Kathy Hochul today kicked off The 2026 Great New York State Fair, celebrating the brand new FFA Building and highlighting a series of new and returning agricultural offerings and exhibits that will further connect fairgoers to New York agriculture. Governor Hochul cut the ribbon on the new 10,500 square-foot FFA Building, which will help develop the next generation of agricultural leaders and support agricultural education, a priority for the Governor. The FFA Building is part of a $34.7 million investment in agricultural facilities at the Fairgrounds and a commitment of $119 million for overall improvements to the grounds since she took office five years ago, in 2021. This year's Fair will run from August 26 through Labor Day Monday, September 7, 2026, and continues to be the most affordable state fair in the nation, and a space for families to 'Get Offline, Get Outside.'

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor's Flickr page will post photos of the event here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Good morning. Good morning, fellow fair lovers. Oh, I've been looking forward to this day for such a long time. Please sit down, please.

The only thing I don't like about the fair is it feels like the end of summer. But if you can set that part aside - maybe we could do this in springtime, and just give us the hope of a longer summer ahead of us. But it is such a spectacular time of year. This is going to be the most beautiful days we've had. I've been here in extreme heat, I've been here in pouring rain. I think we just have a - we broke the spell, and this is going to be a magical time here at the State Fair.

I want to thank Commissioner Ball. He deserves so much credit for carrying the hopes and dreams of our farmers in his heart and in his mind as he executes his work with an incredible team every single day. He goes to bed thinking about what he can do the next day to help our farm community. I share that passion for him. Let's give him another round of applause, Commissioner Richard Ball.

Julie LaFave. Where are you? Julie! Stand up, Julie, take a bow. It is not the easiest job in New York State to run the State Fair. She has done it managing all kinds of challenges with a beautiful passion for what she does as well, and I thank her for serving. Another round of applause for Julie LaFave.

We have a number of elected officials. Our Congressman John Mannion has joined us. Thank you for helping fight the good fight in Washington. We need you now more than ever. Our Senator Chris Ryan is here. Senator Ryan. Assemblymember Bill Magnarelli has joined, in district. Senator Michelle Hinchey, the Chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee. County Executive Ryan McMahon has joined us. District Attorney Bill Fitzpatrick, District Attorney. Thank you. Thank you for all you do. Our Mayor, Sharon Owens, has joined us. Sharon. Let me say that again, Mayor Sharon Owens, the most popular person in the room. Susan LaFex, the Supervisor of the town of Geddes. Members of my incredible cabinet - wave, I love you all. You're doing such a great job. My senior team. The Budget Director, thank him, Blake Washington, for making sure we fund this beautiful place. And all the other electeds. I got a special family here to join me too. It's the only family I have. My family has joined us. Starting is my son, Will, his wife, Christina, and our granddaughter, Sophia.

I want Sophia to grow up loving fairs as much as I do. Because when I was a little girl, we used to wait for the Erie County Fair Parade. There literally was a parade in my hometown with elephants marching down the street. This is a big deal - unless you walked behind the elephants, then it wasn't so great. But the carnival came, and the fair train came. It was the most exciting thing that happened in our young lives. And I carry that, and that knowledge of what a fair means to a community, all the way here to Syracuse.

And for me, I've talked to some of the future - Friday future farmers in the audience? Stand up, future farmers. We didn't have a Future Farmers chapter in my town. I'm sorry we didn't. But we had 4-H, and I joined 4-H. And it was at the Erie County Fair that I did my very first public speaking. I was 10 years old and was told we had to demonstrate something, make a - something that we learned how to cook. They taught us how to make aprons and how to cook - kind of bad at both. Luckily I found another career option. But I had to make a poster, come up with a healthy food to share how to make it, and I came up with a banana orange frosted. Now today we'd call those expensive smoothies you'd probably pay 10 bucks for, okay? It's half a cup of orange juice, half a cup of milk, half a cup of sherbet, and a banana. You throw it in a blender in front of a lot of people, you describe it, and you give your first public speech ever at age 10. I did it, I did it. So I have cherished those young programs where we get little kids literally and young adults going through their teens to really develop this love of fair and community and agriculture and all the benefits for families across the state. It's really special, and I want to thank my 4-H family, if there are anybody else here who loves 4H as much as I do.

But here we are at The Great State Fair, and this is something that I want to share with you personally. This fair was premised on celebrating and showcasing agriculture. Back in 1841, as Commissioner Ball mentioned, you could not have foreseen that this would literally become such an important economic driver in the State of New York literally this many years in the future, 2026. It is huge for us. And yes, we were at fairlife, and I was bragging that fairlife was the largest dairy processing facility in the northeast, because that's what I was told. Then I was told, "Actually, it's not." I started being very competitive. Who's bigger than this? Turns out it's Chobani in the State of New York. Okay, okay, okay. We can love them both. But this is a big deal to our dairy farmers. I have to tell you, this is huge.

When I had to call the CEO of fairlife in California - now owned by Coca-Cola - and said, "I know you're looking at Wisconsin, I know you're looking at all these places, but I've got a great place for you to come: in New York State." He's like, "Seriously?" He's thinking Manhattan, right? Everybody thinks we're all tall buildings. I said, "No, we've got - our cows are the best. They're like the nicest cows you'd ever meet." I said, "I represented cows in Wyoming County when I was in Congress, and there were 40,000 cows and 20,000 people. I even knew all the cows' names. We had the best cows." I said, "You have to come see us." And I said, I'm going to make one more pitch here. I come from a long line of dairy farmers in Ireland. They're still there, outside of Dublin, County Meath. Turns out his family is from County Meath in Ireland. He says, "I will come see what you've got." So that's how you do business in the State of New York. You tell him you're Irish, you tell them you love dairy cows and that's how we do it.

But this puts us on the map, not just for dairy, which is huge for us - and I cannot wait to go to see the butter sculpture in a few minutes and have the chocolate milk for 25 cents. I'm sure it is heavily subsidized by us, right? That's right. Keep it going. Twenty-five cents, Blake, it's not going up. Not going up as long as I'm Governor, so keep me Governor a long time, okay? There you go. But dairy is huge, but also the agricultural, the crops, everything else that they're struggling - and what breaks my heart, that our farmers who go through so much every single day - think about it.

When I represented apple farmers up in Niagara County, and in the springtime - and they could tell me because of the freeze that they had, that they already knew that their crop would not make it into the fall, that they already knew this field was dead, and yet the next year they're going to get up and do it all over again. And they've been decimated by flooding, and extreme heat, and you know what? I love the farm community because they never, never, never give up. They always have that hope.

But they also count on government being on their side, not on their back, not making life harder. And for the farm community today, when we're at a war with Canada - and why do we care about that, farmers? Because that's where the fertilizer comes from. It comes from Canada and Ukraine, right? What's easier to get fertilizer from, Canada or Ukraine right now? It should be Canada, and now there's going to be huge tariffs. You think about the fencing, the steel required for barns, the farm equipment, all that aluminum is coming from Canada. Those tariffs that were put in place by the president to have some sort of war with our best friends does not make sense, does not make sense. All it's going to do is make already a difficult life for struggling farmers even harder.

Now, we'll do what we can. We're allocating $30 million in tariff relief for our farmers. I'm sure they'd rather be having us give it to them for something else, but we're going to help them. Help them get through this. Our dairy modernization grants are out there trying to help them as well. But it is a difficult time for our farmers. I'm going to continue pleading with Washington to just please stop. Just stop. Stop doing what you're doing that's driving up the cost of everything, especially for our farm community and for our families who have to pay more costs for groceries in the stores. Please stop. But know this in New York: We cherish this community. We'll break down the barriers. We'll stand at your side. We'll fight alongside you to just try to give you the break that you want to do because we cannot live without you. And I'm going to continue conveying that message all over.

So this fair is a celebration of that life, a celebration. I'm real excited about cutting the ribbon on our 4,000 square foot FFA building. FFA, getting a new building. We're having the largest Holstein competition we've had in a decade. That's a big - applause that, that's a big deal. 4-H driving miniature horse shows. A new Behind the Halter digital campaign putting a spotlight on our new exhibitors. Tomorrow is Student Youth Day. Every current SUNY student with a valid ID and every incoming student with an admission letter - so even those who haven't started - get in for free.

And we're going to be showcasing our SUNY system and how we're showcasing agriculture, research, STEM, and career opportunities. For example, Binghamton will be showing off their battery technology research. Cobleskill is running an agriculture career day, and ESF has a hands-on STEM exhibit all week. Morrisville students will be judging livestock, and Upstate Medical's got a mobile vision screening and mammography van. So take a minute while you're here to stop by and thank our SUNY partners for their participation in this.

This fair showcases agriculture, but gives a chance to showcase all the great programs we have in the State of New York. So make sure you take advantage of that. Go see the buildings that show you what we're doing at DEC and DOT and Erie Canal. Make sure you go in and thank all of our partners in state government for doing what they do every single day. For $35 million of improvements all over the fair, the Chevy Court, Suburban Park, modernized stage, enhanced milk bars. We got so much going on. I'm not going to tell you it all, because I want you to go see for yourselves.

This is another part of me being Irish - don't forget to stop at the dollar potato booth. These are going to be the best potatoes you ever had outside of Ireland. New York grown potatoes, dairy, all the toppings, the spruced up dairy bar, as I mentioned, and the Asian and Latino villages, the NAACP Van Robinson Pan African Village. Van Robinson will never be forgotten. We love him, love him, love him. He has been a treasure for many decades, making incredible contributions, and he is memorialized here. So make sure you go see everything, and that's all I'm going to say, because I'm looking forward to eating some - you ever have the fried pumpkin pie? Oh, next level. Next level. I could stand here and give out all my food recommendations, but I cannot wait to get started. Thank you for joining us. Go celebrate the greatest fair in America, where you are right now, here in Syracuse, here in the great State of New York. Thank you very much, everyone.