Albany Times Union: Small farms decline in New York, especially dairy
February 20th, 2024
New York farm trends mirror national movement on bigger farms
By Joshua SolomonFeb 18, 2024
ALBANY — Half of New York’s dairy farms from a decade ago no longer exist as rising production costs and national market changes have shuttered thousands of small- and mid-size dairies.
Despite the plummeting number of dairy and other farms in New York, the number of dairy cattle has remained about the same, suggesting smaller farms have either folded and sold their herds to larger competitors or have consolidated with other family farms.
The trends, detailed in new data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, highlight the dairy industry’s ongoing struggles, including labor and production costs soaring nearly 50 percent during the five-year period beginning in 2017.
The decline in the number of New York dairy farms has been particularly precipitous over the last quarter century — from about 9,300 in 1997 to roughly 3,000 in 2022. And the decline accelerated in the last five years, as the dairy industry struggled to turn profits, resulting in 40 percent fewer farms.
Other dairy states across the nation have seen similar sharp declines. Wisconsin has a quarter of the dairy farms it had in 1997. In Pennsylvania, it lost one third of its dairy farms over the last 25 years.
“The dairy industry is so important in rural New York,” said Christopher A. Wolf, a professor at the Cornell Dyson School of Applied Economics & Management. “You’re seeing rural areas struggling a lot more and part of it is because of the loss of these economic drivers.”
Wolf, an expert in the dairy industry, noted the “pattern is pretty standard for the traditional dairy-producing state.”
“That reinforces the story in New York: We have consolidation,” said Richard Stup, director of the Cornell Agricultural Workforce Development program.
The change in the dairy industry appears to also reflect a broader trend in New York with larger, but fewer farms producing a similar amount of product. The data also seem to mirror certain national trends.
But as the number of New York farms have declined, the average size of a farm has increased and the total acreage of farmland has slightly declined in recent years. That’s left roughly 5,000 fewer farms and nearly 700,00 less acres of farmland in the state over the last decade.
And while the cost of production has sharply increased, spiking 43 percent over the last five years without adjusting for inflation, the market value of New York’s agricultural products sold increased by 50 percent. The number of farms with sales over $500,000 annually increased, while all other farms decreased.
The data come from a survey of the nation’s farms from the federal government, which was released last week. The comprehensive data is published every five years, reflecting snapshots of farming in 2012, 2017 and 2022.
“I don’t think that’s a surprise,” New York Farm Bureau spokesman Steve Ammerman said. “This is something we’ve been warning against all along.”
While the Farm Bureau does not necessarily take a position on the types of farms it would like to see in New York, Ammerman said the “loss of one farm is still the loss of a family operation.”
The results in New York follow similar trends nationwide, in which the number of farms have declined by about 10 percent over the last decade. The cost of production also rose across the country, but not as steeply as in New York.
“While the reality of this situation is disturbing, it comes following countless warnings from those who saw the writing on the wall,” Justin Wilcox, executive director of Upstate United, said in a statement. “We have watched one bad policy after another pushed through Albany in recent years making it exceedingly difficult for farms to continue feeding New Yorkers.”
Wilcox placed the trend in the context of a series of foundational changes Democratic lawmakers have passed in recent years, which are intended to provide fairer labor conditions for farm workers but have been vigorously fought by the agricultural industry and Republicans.
Cornell researchers noted it may be too early to walk away with clear analysis of how the state’s policies have influenced the complicated agricultural market. In certain cases, New York has been able to attract major dairy businesses to the state, but it also continues to compete for labor against states with less restrictions on hours worked for employees.
In 2019, then-Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed into law the Farm Laborers Fair Labor Practices Act, which was championed by organized labor.
In the years since, farm owners were required to begin to phase in standards for how many hours farm laborers could work before they qualify for overtime; previously farm laborers were exempted from overtime laws. The laborers were also guaranteed a day of rest and certain abilities to unionize. At the same time, the state’s minimum wage also increased.
As a board under the authority of the state Department of Labor contemplated whether farm workers should be entitled to a 40-hour work week, agricultural groups and rural upstate lawmakers railed against what they saw would be the deathknell to the already struggling mom-and-pop farm.
“To preserve our state’s family farms — many of which have been operational for generations — I am again calling on the governor and the state labor commissioner to do right by these hardworking men and women, and reject the wage board’s recommendations,” Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay said in 2022.
A year ago, state officials finalized a phase-in plan to bring farm workers in line with the rest of the labor industry by making any work over 40 hours in a week qualify for overtime. Gov. Kathy Hochul agreed to provide a semi-annual tax credit to farms to try to offset some of the transitional costs for labor.
“These new regulations ensure equity for farm workers, who are the very backbone of our agriculture sector,” state Department of Labor Commissioner Roberta Reardon said last February. “By implementing a gradual transition, we are giving farmers time to make the appropriate adjustments. These new regulations advance New York state’s continued commitment to workers while protecting our farms.”
Much of the public opposition to the new rules came from the dairy industry, which was signaling its challenges in both the New York economy and the federal marketplace with fixed costs related to milk.
“Critics will say that, ‘Why shouldn’t (farm laborers) be treated like any other worker in any other industry?’” Crystal Grimaldi, a co-owner of Ideal Dairy in Hudson Falls, told the Times Union in 2021. “In theory, I think that I agree with that — but the reality is we’re not like any other industry. We can’t change our operating hours so that we’re only here 9 to 5, five days a week. The cows don’t shut off.”
Grimaldi said the family farm was looking to technology to help reduce the costs of labor, which could lead to a drop in number of people the farm would hire.
“To protect the viability of our remaining dairy farms, local food supply and the rural communities this industry supports, we must continue to work together and invest in New York’s farms, farmworkers and dairy industry partners,” Keith Kimball, chairman of the Northeast Dairy Producers Association said in a statement.