Memorandum in Opposition

S.838 by Senator Kuhl / A.1778 by Member of Assembly Magee
AN ACT to amend the agriculture and markets law, in relation to including the name of the city, village or hamlet and zip code where milk is processed or packaged upon the package of in-state milk.

One of the great ironies of growing up in rural Columbia County in New York's Hudson Valley was that despite being surrounded by an abundance of family-owned dairy farms, our family was unable to buy and drink the milk that had been produced in our backyard.

Not that we didn’t want to. My family, and our friends and neighbors, appreciated the economic benefits provided by Columbia County dairy farms, and understood that their survival was vital to the preservation of the picturesque rural landscape we cherished.

Rather, it was a fluke of dairy industry evolution that the high-grade milk produced in Copake, Hillsdale, Ancram, and other prime Columbia County farming communities was sold to milk processing plants in Massachusetts and Connecticut that marketed their fluid milk products through stores in New England.

Such is the nature of the milk marketing system, with processors in one state routinely receiving raw milk from farms in neighboring states. Thus, “New York milk” may not really be New York milk. Regrettably, that would render futile the labeling mandated by S.838/A.1778 as a way to get consumers to choose in-state vs. out-of-state milk.

Thus, there are insufficient grounds to force convenience store chains that sell their own “private-label” milk to go to the trouble and expense of redesigning and reproducing every size and type of milk carton they carry in order to comply with a labeling requirement of questionable meaning and value to the consumer.

Convenience stores are proud to sell milk to families across New York State. We rely on outstanding suppliers such as Crowley Foods, Upstate Farms, Byrne Dairy, Garelick Farms,. Meadow Brook, and Wendt's to deliver fresh, quality milk for us to sell. We don’t know if that milk originates in New York or Timbuctu. We do know, however, that the more milk our customers buy, the more it helps our dairy industry and New York agriculture as a whole.

Because of Assemblyman Magee’s record of extraordinary leadership in addressing issues facing small, family-operated retail stores like those we represent, and because the Sponsor’s Memorandum affirms his status as a convenience store customer, we hate to take a position against legislation he has offered in good faith in support of New York's dairy industry. But for the aforementioned reasons, we oppose passage of S.838/A.1778.

James S. Calvin
President, NYACS
March 11, 2003