Upstate legislators and agricultural advocates are decrying a proposal in the New York State Legislature that would limit the size of dairy herds to 700 cows. The proposal would prohibit the Department of Environmental Conservation from “issuing or authorizing any permits” to farms with 700 or more dairy cows. The bill states that farms of that size amount to factory farms that “have numerous detrimental impacts to the environment, resulting in billions of pounds of manure each year, creating runoff that pollutes local waterways....” The bill also states that the larger dairy farms “also release significant amounts of methane, a...