Finger Lakes Times: Shut the barn door: proposed law to limit cows finds opposition
June 9th, 2025
June 9, 2025
Article by Louse Hoffman Broach
ALBANY — Dairy all the way … until the cows come home.
All of the cows.
That’s the message that some upstate lawmakers sent last week to a New York City Democrat who has proposed a law that would place a ceiling on the number of cows — 700 — allowed on certain New York dairy farms.
“This is a ridiculous proposal that will do nothing but hinder New York farmers’ ability to produce healthy, delicious dairy products for New York families,” Assemblyman Jeff Gallahan, R-131 of Manchester, said at a rally designed to shut the barn door on the bill.
New York is one of the top five milk-producing states in the U.S. In April, the yogurt company Chobani broke ground on a $1.2 billion manufacturing facility in Rome, Oneida County. The plant is expected to create more than 1,000 jobs.
With that in mind, there’s little likelihood any bill to limit New York’s dairy industry, the state’s largest agricultural sector, stands a chance to become law. Contributing significantly to the state’s economy. New York’s dairy industry produces over 16 billion pounds of milk annually.
But Sen. Jabari Brisport, D-25 of Brooklyn, where there are no diary farms, has proposed legislation that would stop the state Department of Environmental Conservation from giving any permits for new or expanding large concentrated animal feeding operations, known as CAFOs.
Local lawmakers said that Brisport has an erroneous assumption that larger farms that need CAFOs are so-called “industrial players” that push out family farms. In fact, while there are fewer dairy farms in the state than in previous years, almost all are still-family owned and operated, regardless of their size. Some consolidated, trying to be more cost-effective.
The downstate senator also argues he’s concerned about the environment.
“The manure is not treated well. It often seeps into local waterways, causing harmful algal blooms, some of which are destroying the Finger Lakes,” Brisport is quoted as saying to RochesterFirst.com. “In New York State, and they just damaged the drinking water of local communities.”
Brisport did not provide any details of where that public drinking water has suffered.
New York Farm Bureau President David Fisher said farms are held to high environmental standards as mandated by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
“(The) DEC operates under the EPA clean water permit. It’s a general state permit, but you should know it’s more strict than the EPA requires,” said Fisher.
Dairy industry leaders say that larger farms build efficiency.
“The average dairy farm in update New York is about 1,200 cows, so that’s just about right to produce the most amount of milk at the least amount of cost,” said Justin Wilcox, executive director of Upstate United.
A handful of Democrats have also come out against the legislation. Assemblywoman Carrie Woerner, D-113, Saratoga, whose Assembly biography touts her commitment to improving the climate for small businesses and farms since her 2014 election, says that Brisport has it wrong.
“The bill suggests that we have a problem in this state with factory farming. And I’m going to suggest we don’t have a problem with factory farming. Our farms in New York State are family run,” she noted. “I have farms that are third-, fourth-, fifth-generation farms,” said Woerner.
Republican Assemblyman Chris Tague who represents the 102nd Assembly district in Schoharie, is a former dairy farmer.
“Capping a farm at 700 cows is not just arbitrary, it’s ignorant,” said Tague. “It punishes efficiency, it punishes innovation, and worst of all it, punishes family farms, who are trying to survive.”
Farmers themselves have spoken out against the proposal.
“To say that I’m a frustrated dairy farmer in New York State would be an understatement. I don’t understand how a bill like this even gets remotely this far,” said Ray Dykeman of Dykeman and Sons Dairy Farm, a fourth-generation farm in Fultonville, Montgomery County.
The bill is currently in committee and the consensus is it is unlikely to move forward.