NORWICH – With a growing demand for milk in recent years, Chenango County is taking the lead in developing a strategic plan to keep New York’s dairy industry in tune with demand. Local leaders in the ag industry are making strong headway in developing a plan and hopes are to submit it to state legislators by Thanksgiving.
Milk production in the county has dropped 20-30 percent between 2000 and 2010, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service – this despite the increased production of dairy products in recent years, led locally by a booming yogurt market.
Chenango County Cooperative Extension Director Ken Smith is working closely with other constituents from New York’s Farm Bureau and other ag institutions to advocate a dairy strategic plan to be adopted by New York Sate to keep the dairy industry out of the red and stabilize farmers as they face a pending milk shortage. Chenango is the only New York county with a plan started, and as a result, it’s blazing the trail for the dairy industry statewide.
“I don’t think people realize how threatened our dairy industry is right now,” Smith said, citing a 9,000 cow loss per year over the last decade. “Our county and our region is losing its dairy industry steadily ... We’re losing cow numbers and we’re losing production. Our goal is to have New York State adopt a strategic plan that puts dairy tools and research together to help grow the industry.”
Regardless the state’s optimistic outlook on the dairy industry, spurred by the first NY Dairy Summit held in August, the United States Department of Agriculture shows consistent trends of declining milk production that span several decades. To help offset the loss in production, the state proposed to increase the Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) cap from 200 to 300 cows, meaning small dairy farms could essentially increase their herd while being exempted from environmental mandates that currently have a stronghold on dairy farms with more than 200 cows.
Nevertheless, the solution isn’t simply to increase herd sizes, Smith explained. Milk production per cow can be increased by modernizing and adjusting to what’s called “cow comfort,” achieved through larger stall sizes, better bedding, and lower stress environments for cows. Through methods of modernization, the state’s dairy industry could potentially increase milk production by as much as 10.6 percent by adding only 65,000 cows to its herds, according to data from the USDA, Smith said. “Modernization is something that’s incorporated into our strategic plan,” he added. “It’s going to have a big role in the outcome of production.”
Even if efforts to increase milk production are successful, it’s only one of many challenges for dairy farmers to overcome. Many local farmers question the milk pricing strategy established by the federal government. That, combined with increasing fuel and feed costs, is putting many farmers in a situation where the costs to produce cut deeply into profit.
“We’re not just trying to increase production, but we’re also looking to increase manufacturing and consumption too,” Smith explained. One need look no further than the local grocery store shelves to see new dairy products hitting the market on a regular basis, he noted. “For a long time, New York dairy was considered a thing of the past, but I think over the next few years, we’re going to keep seeing new dairy products produced because more people are recognizing the potential of the dairy industry.”
“Ideally, we would like to see a statewide plan in place over the course of the year,” said Smith. “Our hope is to submit something by Thanksgiving so that it’s a topic that will hopefully be addressed in the governor’s State of the State address.”