U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer launched his push to have the U.S.

Department of Agriculture
(USDA) create a new dairy payment option for the margin protection program (MPP), a dairy
risk management program, that would give more financial flexibility to New York State dairy
farmers, who face turbulent milk prices. Creating more flexibility for premium payments would
attract more farmers to participate in the dairy risk management program, which helps farmers
through tough times when profit margins get too low. Currently, dairy farmers are required to
pay the total cost of their milk insurance premiums early in the calendar year, which is
increasingly difficult now due to falling prices. Schumer said the inherent volatility of milk
prices, dairy farmers should have greater flexibility to meet their insurance costs. Therefore,
Schumer proposed to USDA a new dairy insurance payment option whereby the dairy co-ops or
a private company, which buys and markets milk on behalf of individual producers, could front
the insurance premiums for individual farms and then could be paid back by deducting premium
costs from monthly milk checks to farmers.

Total Number of Upstate New York Dairy Farms (2012): 5,421*

Capital Region
COUNTY

Number of
Dairy Farms
(2012)*

Albany
Columbia
Fulton
Greene
Montgomery
Rensselaer
Saratoga
Schenectady
Schoharie
Washington

21
38
22
22
191
34
34
4
72
164

TOTAL

602

Central New York

COUNTY

Number of
Dairy Farms
(2012)*

Cayuga
Cortland
Lewis
Madison

147
91
237
199

Oneida
Onondaga
Oswego
TOTAL

214
68
63
1,019

Rochester Finger Lakes

COUNTY

Number of
Dairy Farms
(2012)*

Genesee
Livingston
Monroe
Ontario
Orleans
Seneca
Wayne
Wyoming
Yates
TOTAL

79
53
18
119
31
154
68
163
337
1,022

Western New York

COUNTY

Number of
Dairy Farms
(2012)*

Cattaraugus
Chautauqua
Erie
Niagara
TOTAL

198
223
92
26
539

Southern Tier
COUNTY

Number of
Dairy Farms
(2012)*

Allegany
Broome
Chemung
Chenango
Delaware
Otsego
Schuyler
Steuben
Tioga
Tompkins
TOTAL

112
34
23
184
151
172
45
255
88
62
1,126

Hudson Valley
COUNTY

Number of
Dairy Farms
(2012)*

Dutchess
Orange
Putnam
Rockland
Sullivan
Ulster
Westchester
TOTAL

35
51
N/A
1
32
10
1
130

North Country
COUNTY

Number of
Dairy Farms
(2012)*

Clinton
Essex
Franklin
Hamilton
Herkimer
Jefferson
St. Lawrence
Warren
TOTAL

109
22
155
N/A
172
205
319
1
983

Methodology
* Data for the number of dairy farms comes from the USDAs National Agricultural Statistics
Service 2012 Census of Agriculture. Currently, over 50 percent of dairy farmers have elected
some level of coverage under MPP for their product, meaning a significant percentage of the
above farms in Upstate New York could benefit from enrolling in future years if they are not
already enrolled now.