The Coronavirus Pandemic has caused a lot of hardship for people across the country.
Dairy farmers who are part of the essential workforce, are struggling as a clog in the distribution system forces them to dump their milk.
Of milk.
But local dairy farmers have a much different view...they tell us there's too much.
Here's newschannel 2's brent kearney.
"coronavirus has caused alot of hardship for people across the country especially dairy farmers.
The owners here at finndale farms tells me they watch literally as their profits go down the drain."
.
None .
None "we work hard to make milk every day and we know there's people who need it, so its really hard to watch."
For the finndale family, this has never been done before.
"nats" 11,000 gallons of milk nats sent down the drain....the reason?
"its the middleman that cant handle the volume coming in."
Stephanie tells me that when the pandemic started, their was a high demand for dairy products, that fluctuated as schools and restraunts shut down.
Now stephanie says processors are struggling to fill the shelves.
"basically processors cant keep up with demand.
That's why they're limiting people with how much they can buy.
There's not a shortage of milk, there's actually a surplus."
County executive anthony picente says he's well aware of the issue.
And that farmers should contnue to notify the county of their losses for possible reimbursement "picente quote."
"the whole milk processing piece is pretty complex and we are working with our partners in cornell that will hpefully have some communication that will alleviate all of this."
They've been dumping milk for three days now.
Farm owner travis finn tells me, production must go on, even if they're losing money doing it.
"they have to be milked everyday for their health.
If we dont keep them milked on a normal time level.horrible health issues show up with your cattle."
But as they like the rest of us work through this pandemic, travis says cutting their staff will be the last thing they do.
"our employees and their families are very important to us and that will be the last place we cut, we will look for other places to cut, places where we can cut costs for a short time for where we are able to get through it, before we ever say we need to lay people off."
But like everyone, the finns are hoping for the light at the end of the tunnel.
"we certainly hope so.
We have alot of young people that are involved with this operation that want to have a long future with it.
And that's incentive enough to really want to get creative to keep it all together and make it through the end of this.
In holland patent brent kearney news channel 2 time now for a first look at
Nearly 4,000 gallons of milk is being distributed to Oneida County families.
This was Delgado's fourth Telephone Town Hall meeting. One topic addressed was the struggle of area Dairy Farmers.
