NORWICH – The Chobani Greek yogurt craze continues to put the spotlight on New York’s dairy industry and the controversial issue of supply and demand. With current input of $1.30 to $2 per gallon to produce, but only $1.50 paid at the farm gate, farmers of small to mid-sized dairies are going backwards and even out of business from a lack of profitability.

Chenango County’s farmers could be losing up to 50 cents or more per gallon. Cornell Cooperative Extension Director Ken Smith said that’s because their cost of production tends to be higher because the farms here don’t have the economy of scale when they go to purchase supplies. Most of the farms in Chenango County are small to mid-sized with fewer than 200 cows.

For example, dairy farmer and Town of Sherburne Supervisor Charles Mastro said his feed bill went up a whopping $800 last month. “The cost of production is at least what we should be paid,” he said.

Meanwhile, manufacturers continue to suffer from a lack of milk availability. Chobani has been forced to look for supply outside New York and even built a facility in Idaho in order to

guarantee product for West Coast markets. The yogurt plant ships over 1.7 million cases each week across the country and demands more than three million pounds of milk a day. New York dairies are so far only providing 85 percent of it.

A resolution adopted by the Chenango County Board of Supervisors this month encourages Gov. Andrew Cuomo to develop a strategic plan to help farmers produce enough milk to supply not only Chobani in the Town of Columbus, but all of New York’s dairy foods processors. Smith recommends a plan similar to Wisconsin’s, where the industry, the state, farmers and educational institutions vowed to grow Wisconsin’s annual dairy output by 30 billion pounds of milk by 2020.

“The Cuomo Adminstration and New York’s Ag and Markets, Farm Bureau, and dairy cooperatives need to sit down together and form a consensus on what’s best for farmers and dairy manufacturers,” he said.

The Wisconsin plan identifies loans and grants available to producers and beginning farmers, and outlines management and operational systems, business and legal structures, and herd health and milk production services. Milk production per cow can be increased with so called ‘cow comforts’ such as larger barns and manure pits.

During discussion, Supervisor Dennis Brown, D-Pharsalia, directed Smith to develop the strategy here rather than leave the decisions up to the “ivory tower” in Albany. When Smith said his office already had the plan in place and would be delivering it directly to decision-makers within the Southern Tier Regional Economic Development Council, Brown said he hoped “those people in Binghamton will listen to us.”

“In Chenango County, a small active farm is much more important to us than a non-resident’s money that buys the land to put in a driveway so they can come up and visit every once in a while,” he said. “We want ‘growth factor’ here for our kids. Chobani presents an opportunity for us to sell a lot of product and get back to the day when their was plenty of flow.”