The current guest worker program, the H-2A visa, does not apply to dairy producers as they aren’t seasonal and require year-round laborers, making labor an issue for the industry. The federal Department of Labor estimates that nearly half of farmworkers in the U.S. are here without documentation.

Chobani Chief Executive Officer Hamdi Ulukaya is an immigrant himself, and Gov. Kathy Hochul highlighted that in her remarks.

“I was really touched when I was visiting and I heard about how some of your executives would drive all the way up to Utica and bring back people – some of the refugees looking for a new life, a new beginning, and you made them part of the Chobani family that touched my heart, and as the governor of a state that is built by the immigrant experience at a time when many of them are denigrated, I thank you for all that you have done to make that immigrant American experience so extraordinary for many,” Hochul said.

Ulukaya said he doesn’t have concerns about the crackdown on immigration by the Trump administration, and he has hired immigrants and refugees in the past.

“These people have a right to work if they’re legal,” Ulukaya said.

Construction of the new facility is expected to begin this year and will bring 1,000 jobs to the area once it is completed.

“When you look at that many jobs being created, there’s no question that we need a pathway in or exposure to get people interested into those specific industries. There is no question that Chobani has utilized foreign labor from all parts of the world,” said Joel Riehlman, dairy farmer and owner of Venture Farms in Tully.

Chobani has another production facility in New Berlin where people from 27 different nationalities are employed, Ball said.

But the other concern is that young people aren’t entering the industry as much as they used to, Riehlman said.

“We truly have to be innovative in how we procure the next generation of managers, farm owners and there’s definitely going to be a need for folks to be proficient on the production side of things,” he said.

The middle management positions are incredibly important on farms, and Riehlman said those people have been hard to come by.

“It’s going to be very important for New York state as well as the industry to take some initiative to make sure there are opportunities to expose your school-aged kids in public schools [to the dairy industry],” he said.

The facility will process over 12 million pounds of milk per day. In 2023, New York state produced 16.1 billion pounds of milk, according to data from the Department of Agriculture and Markets.

“The amount of milk that’s being produced in New York state right now, there is no question that the volume will have to increase,” Riehlman said.

However, with increased efficiency in these newer plants, Riehlman said the older plants may not be able to compete.

“They shut down and then that’s just a transfer of milk from one processing plant to another more modern, more efficient plant. I do believe this won’t be a 100% new volume that will be expected by New York state dairy farmers and that a portion of this will be a shift from processing that’s already been established in some old infrastructure,” he said.

About 70% of the milk produced at Venture Farms goes to Chobani, and Riehlman said this will be an opportunity for producers to expand if they choose.

“This is probably a very good time to potentially do that because the processing is going to be turning the green light on and saying that we need additional milk,” he said.

Ball said it’s normal for cows to produce 100 pounds of milk per day, and that production has only increased over the last few years.

“I like where we are in New York, I really do because we’ve got good farmers, good land, we’ve got the best land grant system for ag education in the country. We’ve got water and we have the best marketplace in the world,” he said.

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