A dairy farmer cooperative in New York has opened a new milk-processing plant in the Finger Lakes region. The Cayuga Milk Ingredients plant in Aurelius took its first truckload of milk June 1 and is scheduled to start its dryer Aug. 21 for producing dry milk products.

It had processed 25 million pounds of milk by Aug. 11, according to The (Syracuse) Post-Standard.

The 156,000-square-foot plant cost $101 million, including $4 million in funding from the state of New York for job creation and tax credits and $1 million from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority for energy-saving projects. Cayuga Marketing members provided approximately $40 million, and the project’s major lender was Farm Credit.

The plant and its operating company are owned by Cayuga Marketing, a dairy producers co-op that started in 1986, according to the Cayuga Milk Ingredients website.

Cayuga Marketing is owned by its member dairy farmers, all living within 40 miles of the plant. Cayuga says this close proximity makes for faster, less-expensive transportation of milk to the processing plant and for higher-quality products.

Cayuga Marketing has 29 member farms, employs 58 people with a $3.5 million payroll, and expects to earn $170 million annually, according to The Post-Standard and The (Auburn, New York) Citizen. Cayuga works with the Ingredia Group, a French dairy co-op, to market its products internationally.

Cayuga County has 128 farms that in 2012 produced $158.7 million worth of milk, according to the USDA.

—Summarized by Progressive Dairyman staff from cited sources