WASHINGTON – It costs dairy farmers $17.58 to produce a hundredweight of milk yet at the present time, the market is paying only $13.33 and Senator Kristen Gillibrand wants to do something to aid Hudson Valley dairy farmers and those around the rest of the state.

Gillibrand is proposing legislation that would double the amount of money farmers get from the MILC program retroactive to the low point of the crisis in March. She will also introduce legislation that would index the MILC rate of $16.94 to inflation.

The senator is concerned that farmers might not be able to stay in existence for long if the price inequity continues.

“If anyone thinks it’s a concern that we have to get our oil from the Middle East, imagine how concerned we would be if we had to get our milk from China, and that is not a solution that I ever want to see being discussed,” she said. “We just witnessed baby formula being poisoned because of a lack of regulation oversight from China, children’s toys being poisoned, pharmaceuticals being poisoned. So we want to have healthy, wholesome food production in all parts of America.”

Westtown, NY dairy farmer Brian Ford said Gillibrand’s proposals are a start. “What she’s doing is a band aid, help for now, but we’re running into big company manipulation,” he said. “Two companies have 80 percent of the (milk processing) market share so where do we stand. There are government regulations, but these big companies get around that but we saw that with Wall Street. Who’s watching whom?”

Ford, who operates a 1,000 head family farm with his brothers and father, said because many farmers can’t hold on forever, the number of dairy farms in the Hudson Valley is just a fraction of what it once was.