Farms: Local Dairy Farmers Facing Closure

GLEN‚"There's too much milk in New York State and because of it, eight local dairy farms may soon close. The farms are located in Saratoga, Montgomery, Fulton and Herkimer counties and they've been scrambling to find a processor that will buy their milk since they were notified their current processor won't renew the contract. The Dykeman Dairy Farm has been operating in Montgomery County for nearly 50 years and in all that time, there has never been more uncertainty about the future than there is right now. The processor they sell milk to has dropped them and the 7 other farms in their co-op, "we got a 30-day notice that they didn't need our milk anymore," says owner Ray Dykeman. International exports are down and there is a flush of milk in the northeast right now so processors simply don't need as much milk as they once did. "It was probably easier to go to the head of our co-op and say "we don't need your milk" any more than it was to go to 30 farms and say we don't need your milk, so basically our co-op got left out in the cold," says Dykeman who has been scrambling to find another processor for the past 24 days without success. He currently has 950 milking cows on his farm. "I have never seen anything like this ever and I hope to never see it again, I don't know 6 days from now if I'm out of business because if I have to dump my milk or send my cows down the road, it won't be a good day for me," Dykeman says and it won't be a good day for the communities where these farms operate either. "You look at all the equipment here and on all the other farms and there's a lot of jobs that are associated with all those investments, the milk truck drivers, the vet supply, the contractors that build buildings and help to maintain equipment and all those things, it's a ripple effect‚You're talking about 25% of the agricultural income in this county alone which would have a huge economic impact, it'd be pretty devastating to this area," says David Balbain, a Dairy Management Specialist with the Cornell Cooperative Extension. The group of farmers has reached out to the NYS Farm Bureau, The Department of Agriculture and Markets, Assemblyman Angelo Santabara's office and Senator George Amedore's office looking for help. All of the agencies claim they're working on assistance that may be able to aid the farmers while they try to find a new processor but time seems to be running out. "I hope they find a market, I think they will but it may end up being at a greatly discounted price," says Balbain. Dykeman is willing to make concessions to keep his farm open and his 40 employees working, "this is just a roadblock that I never saw coming and hopefully me and my family can figure out how to deal with it," he says.