Looney & Duff Call on Lamont to Use Emergency Reserve for CT Dairy Farmers

Senate Democratic Leaders Say Tariff-Driven Crisis Threatening Remaining Farms Is Precisely What State Reserve Was Built For

HARTFORD — Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney (D-New Haven) and Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff (D-Norwalk) today called on Governor Ned Lamont to deploy funding from the Emergency State Response Reserve to provide immediate relief to Connecticut’s dairy farmers, who face a compounding federal crisis that has pushed a structurally vulnerable industry to the edge of collapse.

Connecticut is home to fewer than 80 dairy farms which is more than a 60 percent decline over the last two decades. The Connecticut Dairy Farmer Coalition projects those remaining farms will collectively lose $20 million in 2026. That crisis has two distinct federal causes that have converged simultaneously.

The first is structural: federal milk marketing rules set minimum prices based on production conditions that favor large corporate farms over Connecticut’s family owned dairies. Connecticut farmers have, in some cases, been receiving the same price per hundredweight they received in 1995. While this is not a new problem, it has been exacerbated by Trump tariffs.

The second is also the direct consequence of federal tariff policy. Tariffs have driven up the cost of the basic inputs of dairy production like fertilizer, farm equipment, and agrochemicals while simultaneously triggering retaliatory trade actions from key export partners including Canada, Mexico, and China. Those countries have redirected dairy purchases to competitors in the European Union and New Zealand, reducing demand for American dairy exports and further suppressing the prices Connecticut farmers receive for their milk. The federal government has, in effect, squeezed Connecticut’s dairy farmers from both ends at once by raising what it costs to produce milk while reducing what farmers are paid for it.

“Connecticut’s dairy industry was already fighting to survive under a federal pricing system that was never designed with New England farms in mind,” said Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney. “Federal tariff policy has now made a difficult situation untenable. The Emergency State Response Reserve was created for exactly this kind of moment: when the actions of the Trump administration impose direct and demonstrable harm on Connecticut workers and industries. We urge the Governor to deploy it now, before more farms are lost permanently.”

“Every farm closure is irreversible,” said Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff. “Connecticut’s dairy farms generate $126 million in annual economic impact, support more than 800 jobs, and contribute nearly $17 million in state and local taxes each year. These are family operations, many of them multigenerational, that anchor rural communities across the state. Trump doesn’t care about the pain of our farmers, but we do. Time to put action behind those words.”

The Emergency State Response Reserve was established by the General Assembly in November 2025 with $500 million in state surplus funding to address the effects of federal cuts and policy changes on Connecticut residents. Senators Looney and Duff argue that the tariff-driven agricultural crisis falls squarely within the reserve’s intended purpose, and that the $20 million in immediate relief requested by the dairy coalition represents a targeted and necessary use of those funds.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Kevin Coughlin | kevin.coughlin@cga.ct.gov | 203-710-0193