Life on a dairy in upstate New York

After my visit to Grand Rapids, Michigan, I hopped into my truck and headed towards Ogdensburg, New York. By going through the Sarnia port of entry to Canada, I saved many miles by not traveling around Lake Ontario and Lake Erie and through Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania to get to the state of New York. I also avoided the huge traffic bottle neck of Detroit.

Highway 401 in Canada is a very nice highway with traffic that certainly wants to get to the next place quickly. The topography in Southern Ontario is very flat, with many well-kept farms. Once the freeway joins the cities of Guelph, Toronto and others, it practically seems like a freeway through Chicago. Only one area from Sarnia to Ottawa has an environment of rough country land with pine trees and no houses.

After six hours of driving, I reached the small towns along the St. Lawrence Seaway on the Canadian side. Finally, the exit to Ogdensburg, New York appeared — only five miles from the U.S. border. There is a huge, all-metal bridge built high enough to allow the huge ships that enter the seaway to pass underneath. By then, it was 10 p.m., and I was the only vehicle on the bridge. At the customs stop, I was asked for my passport and my reason for entering New York. As soon as I told the gentleman I was visiting a dairy farm, he held up his hand with two missing fingers and said he had also been a dairy farmer at one time.

In a few minutes, I was in the home of Keith and Kathy, with whom I have traveled with on many tours in foreign countries. The Pierces’ Dairy is located about 10 miles from the Highway 401 exit or just five miles outside of Ogdensburg, New York. Ogdensburg is a city of about 10,000 people. The terrain is very flat, but the last glacier in their area left them some areas that are very rocky. In fact, they do not even till those areas and harvest a crop of hay once a year for dry cows.

Other areas are fertile, with eight to ten inches of black dirt for topsoil. Land is valued at around 3,500 dollars per acre. In a normal year, they will get 60 to 68 bushels of Plenish high-oleic soybeans. Corn silage will yield an average of 15 tons per acre, with shelled corn around 140 bushels an acre. Corn maturity is generally 90-95 days. Alfalfa does grow, but it must be winter hardy and disease resistant. A pest called the snout beetle apparently came in on ships going through the St. Lawrence Seaway and lives on the roots of alfalfa plants.

2025 was a very horrendous drought year for most of the farmers in the upper portion of New York State. They barely had any rain between May and late August. The Pierces farm 7,000 acres and normally produce enough soybeans from 1,000 acres to supply themselves and many other farms with the high-fat soybeans. In the 2025-26 season, their five electric roasters are taking a break because there were only enough beans for their own cows. All of their corn was chopped for silage to provide enough roughage for their 3,600 cows.

A few years ago, as the Pierces expanded their dairy, they decided to sell all newborn calves and purchase springing animals in order to reduce the number of youngstock on the farm. With the changing economics on dairies that makes selling newborn calves lucrative, it also makes the cost of replacements expensive. Now, the Pierces are beginning to raise 40 heifer calves a month to get back into rearing their own replacements.

New York State has different labor laws on farms. Currently, any employee who works over 52 hours a week is paid overtime. That level was recently reduced from 58 to 52 and will change in a few years to 48 hours. The minimum wage for farm workers is 16 dollars per hour. The state government reimburses farmers for eight hours of overtime each week. The Pierces’ employees average 66 hours per week.

There are currently at least four new or rebuilt dairy plants being constructed within the state of New York: one to make cottage cheese, one to make yogurt and two to make cheese. To incentivize dairy farmers to produce more milk to supply these plants, the state government is granting a 20% investment tax credit to farmers. Investments applicable are parts for machinery, cows, new facilities and milk cooling systems. This has led to a building boom in the state.

The Pierces’ milk is transported in large semi tankers that hold 72,000 pounds of milk to AgriMark Co-op, where it is processed into cheese intended mostly for the Eastern seaboard population. Keith and Kathy have three sons who are actively involved on the farm. They also have two daughters who live nearby, work off the farm and help on the farm when available.