We’re still number 3
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- June
- 3
Hold on, Idaho, you haven’t passed New York yet.
The Empire State held onto its position as the nation’s third-largest producer of milk last year, according to the state Department of Agriculture and Markets.
New York cows produced 12.432 billion pounds of milk last year, just ahead of Idaho’s 12.315 billion and far behind California (41.2 billion) and Wisconsin (24.5 billion).
Idaho has been gaining rapidly because farmers have been fleeing wage laws for farm workers in California, according to Julie Suarez of the New York Farm Bureau. Idaho passed Pennsylvania for fourth place last year.
The Legislature is expected to approve similar regulations in New York, including mandatory overtime pay, that farmers say will badly hurt the state’s already struggling agricultural sector. But advocates, like Sen. Liz Kreuger, D-Manhattan, said it’s a “human-rights issue’’ to treat all workers the same.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009 at 1:32 pm by Jay Gallagher.
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Jay Gallagher has covered Albany for Gannett News Service since 1984 and has been Albany Bureau chief since 1989. He`s a native of the Boston area and likes to point out that in this millennium, the score is Red Sox 1 championship, the Yankees 0. 
Cara Matthews has been a statehouse correspondent in the Albany Bureau since August 2005. Prior to that, she covered Putnam County government and politics at The Journal News for nearly five years. Before that, she worked at newspapers in Connecticut and covered the state Legislature for one of them. 
