The 1980s were a time of change for dairy farms in New York and elsewhere. Major initiatives in national dairy policy, such as the Milk Diversion Program and the Dairy Termination Program of the mid-1980s, and the record farm-level prices experienced in late 1989 have caught the lion's share of public attention. In the _midst of all this excitement, other subtle changes in the size, structure, and geographic orientation of dairy production occurred, most of which reflect longer-term trends which ultimately are probably of greater consequence than federal price support policy. This paper is a discussion of changes in the volume and structure of milk production in New York during the 1980s.