By Charlie Elrod, NEAFA President
Dairy Month in June got started almost 90 years ago, back when most of our dairies were pasture-based, and there was a seasonal glut of milk coming out of all those pastured cows. The idea was to help drive demand for dairy products while kids were out of school. Today, Dairy Month is a celebration of the resilience of our nation’s dairy farmers and the great nutrition available through the myriad of innovative dairy products.
It has been 40 years since I moved from Georgia to New York for grad school, to study dairy cow reproduction. At our going-away party, several friends asked me variations on the question: “Why are you moving to NY? Do they have cows up there?” Little did they know…
Last week, several of your NEAFA board members sat in a cavernous warehouse which will soon be holding mountains of refrigerated, consumer-packaged dairy products at the new Cayuga Milk plant in Auburn NY. Sometime this fall, the $270M facility will be online to provide another outlet for milk from the Cayuga Marketing Group. Add that to the tremendous growth in dairy processing capacity from Fairlife ($650M investment), Chobani ($1.2B expansion) and expansions at several other existing plants and it leaves me wondering where all the milk will come from.
After the ribbon-cutting, speeches and lunch at the Cayuga Milk opening, representatives from NEAFA, NEDPA, NYFB, NYAAC, Cornell CALS and the Department of Agriculture and Markets sat down to share their outlooks on the dairy industry. Each of us offered our thoughts from our different perspectives, but the overriding theme had to be the power of collaboration. There was great energy in the room as we discussed our natural competitive advantages in the Northeast and the ways in which these various groups had worked together to advance the causes of the dairy industry. There was no room in the discussion for boundary-marking, but rather a focus on how we work to support each other and build on this fertile ecosystem that makes up the dairy industry of the Northeast. The next twenty years are going to be an incredibly exciting time to be in the dairy industry in our neck of the woods. And while there’s a lot of competition in the marketplace, we all know where our bread is buttered. That will continue to come as we all work toward the common goal of supporting dairy cows, dairy farms and dairy farmers. Happy Dairy Month!