Lawmakers and state leaders visited a York County cheese business on Thursday to push the importance of the Pennsylvania Farm Bill.

The $24-million package of legislation includes the Dairy Investment Program.

Grants of $5 million were awarded as part of the program last year, with continued funding for the program as part of the Pennsylvania Farm Bill. 

Caputo Brothers Creamery in Spring Grove is one of the recipients of those grants. They used it to expand their cheese business.

“We can talk about the dairy significance. We can talk about how we like to save the farms. We can talk about all the things that are happening around the world with trade,” Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture Russell Redding said. “At the end of the day, it’s about investment in dairy. It’s about the consumption of dairy. And a big piece of that consumption is in cheese and the growing cheese market. That’s what Caputo Brothers is doing.”

Last year, Pennsylvania was second only to Wisconsin in the number of dairy farms that were forced to close.