"Nearly 2.5 million acres in New York state are directly tied to dairy farming. The milk crisis is severe enough to put many farms at risk, raising the potential of abandoned farmland susceptible to development.

In the Northeast, with farms different from the huge factory dairies found in much of the West, the cost of milk is a land-use question. Farmers here still run relatively small herds, and they raise their own feed crops. This kind of dairy is a relatively benign use of the land, a means of protecting open space, a form of stewardship that is more acceptable than most others. We think it is right to keep the state’s dairy farmers on their farms, even if we are not happy with this way of going about it."

- An editorial in today's edition of the New York Times arguing that the federal government should step in and stabilize the price of milk to prevent more dairy farmers from losing their farms.