Progressive legislators want to dictate Upstate cow populations, because of course they know better than anyone who actually lives anywhere near a dairy farm.
Is it any wonder why Upstaters hate New York City, at least the jerks we elect?
Animal-rights obsessive Manhattan Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal has teamed-up with Brooklyn Democratic Socialist state Sen. Jabari Brisport to push a limit of 700 cows per farm — a move that would slam an important industry and not help the environment one whit.
The two Democrats claim that their bill protects the environment and preserves small, family-owned farms from becoming corporate “factory farms.”
Except upstate farmers face no such threat and want nothing to do with these lawmakers and the big-city condescension.
“Placing a cap on the number of cows on a dairy farm means placing a cap on growth and success,” argues the New York Farm Bureau.
Nor did Rosenthal or Brisport visit any actual farming communities before moving to “fix” them: Their measure relies on a 2024 report from Food & Water Watch, an offshoot of Ralph Nader’s lefty Public Citizen funded by a slew of progressive charities.
The lefty legislators plainly also know nothing of the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s work in ensuring dairy farms adhere to the nation’s most stringent standards and land-management practices.
But they surely do know that countless urban “environmentalists” are convinced that cow flatulence is a prime cause of global warming.
Gov. Kathy Hochul reportedly calls the measure “insane” and no doubt annoyed that the Rosenthal-Brisport fantasy comes as Great Lakes Cheese, Fairlife and Chobani are investing billions in upstate dairy communities.
So the bill won’t become law this year — but if progressives keep growing their majorities in the Legislature, anything goes: Knowing nothing never stops the progs from imposing their ideas whenever they have the power.
The result, of course, would simply be forcing consumers to get more milk from producers in Midwest states without such nutty laws — continuing the long hollowing-out of Upstate.
Hmm: That population loss would further boost progressives’ power in the Legislature; they’ll be running everything by the time they completely destroy the entire state.