Farmers get more money from premium product

PLEASANT VALLEY - It's tough to be a dairy farmer right now. Business costs are soaring and wholesale milk prices are low.

It can be even tougher to raise cows on prime real estate in the mid-Hudson Valley, where many old dairy farms have been sliced up to make way for subdivisions with $400,000 homes.

“This is the high-rent district, no doubt about it,” said farmer Sam Simon, standing in his barn as his milking cows chomped on hay. “But you cannot deny the farmer who has worked for 50 years the fruit of his labor.”