DAIRY INDUSTRY STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS FOR DELAWARE, SULLIVAN, AND ORANGE COUNTIES: FAQ Submitted by Ashley Tully, Ag Program Coordinator
What is the Project? Cornell Cooperative Extension of Delaware County has been successful in obtaining funding from NYS Department of Ag and Markets to conduct a Dairy Industry Strategic Planning Process for Delaware, Sullivan and Orange Counties over the next 18 months, in collaboration with CCE of Sullivan and Orange counties. Why the Project? • The last two years have seen a rapid change in farm demographics within these three counties, especially as external factors not previously present such as thinning milk markets and production quotas have come to bear. • We believe that left to market forces alone, the dairy industry would not likely choose to source milk from this region. • Despite these demographics, the dairy industry remains a very important economic engine for this area, one worth fostering. • Therefore, we are Page 4
motivated to identify all of the ways that the counties in this region can support maintaining a viable dairy industry, and analyze, summarize and prioritize these strategies in a plan for each county and the region. This will be done via a strategic planning process.
be analyzed, prioritized and summarized into a Strategic Plan for each County and across the region. The plan will be adopted for local municipalities and will serve a roadmap and framework for identifying necessary funding. What is YOUR role in this Process? • We are seeking local dairy farmers and key agency personnel to serve on the Dairy Task Force for each county. Members are committing to approximately four (4) meetings over the next 12-18 months. Dairy farmers will be compensated for their time spent at these meetings. We are looking for Task Force members who have a positive attitude about supporting the local dairy industry, who are willing to be creative in developing local solutions, and excited about being part of process to accomplish this, and willing to collaborate with others in doing so.
What will the Strategic Planning Process look like? • We are implementing a planning process that is locally driven in each county, engaging local stakeholders, especially farmers in the process. The process will be facilitated by a professional consultant who will engage these stakeholders in a Dairy Task Force in each county, as well as across counties over the 12-18 months. The consultant will lead the task force members through a process of identifying and evaluating all possible strategies that could be implemented in each county and across the region to support the local dairy industry. Our hope is that a wide innovative and impactful Could that be you? strategies are identified. These strategies will then Extension Connection
December 2021
