Assemblyman Chris Tague (R,C,I-Schoharie) has been joined by his Minority Assembly colleagues in sending a letter to New York City Mayor Eric Adams requesting that he rollback his efforts to ban chocolate milk from New York City schools.

In the letter, Tague argues that milk is a nutritious, essential beverage for children, which has been cited by organizations such as the American Heart Association as critical to their healthy development. Chocolate milk provides an enticing option to students, which encourages them to consume the milk needed for their growing bodies.

The removal of chocolate milk from school cafeterias would also be a major blow to upstate dairy farmers, who rely on revenue from the city school system to make ends meet. With little ability to change the prices paid to them for their products, regardless of what it costs to produce them, dairy farmers are fortunate to turn a profit as things stand currently, given how expensive it is to do business in New York state.

“Fighting to take chocolate milk off of the lunch trays of our children represents big government nanny-statism at its worst, and threatens the viability of dairy farmers who are already facing the possibility of seeing their labor costs skyrocket due to a decrease in the farm laborer overtime threshold,” said Tague. “Milk has been recognized as an incredibly important part of a child’s diet for decades, so I am imploring Mayor Adams to leave our kids’ lunches, and our dairy farmers' livelihoods, alone.”