Dairy farmers in Butler County — what remains of them — vented their frustrations Wednesday with a Pennsylvania Milk Marketing Board visiting Butler County Community College, intent on listening to ideas and hearing mostly complaints.

The three-person, Harrisburg-based board has the Herculean task of shoring up an endangered but still prominent state dairy industry. Its primary function is to set minimum milk prices that processors must adhere to. But chairman Rob Barley, appointed to the board just three months ago by Gov. Tom Wolf, says the mission must expand to help dairy farmers to maximize sales and profits.

Apparently, that means the bigger the better.

Barley’s Star Rock Farms, based in Conestoga, Lancaster County, maintains 1,450 dairy cows and 11,500 acres of farmland while annually raising nearly 94,000 hogs, and producing 2,400 beef cattle and 100,000 organic broiler chickens.

The board’s other active farmer, Jim Van Blarcom of Bradford County, maintains a herd of 500 cows and raises 5,600 hogs a year.

These massive herds dwarf even the most prominent farm operations in Butler County — farms like Marburger Dairy, which maintains 130 milking cows.

The third member of the Milk Marketing board is not a farmer. That seat traditionally has been held by a consumer representative. Carol Hardbarger, a retired agricultural education specialist, was recently appointed by Wolf.

That means there is essentially no representation on the board for the type of small family farm operations that have been part of Western Pennsylvania’s heritage for the better part of 200 years. And while the three board members expressed a fraternal sympathy with the local folk, their approach is radically different from what the local culture, climate and geography appear willing to yield.

Don’t fault the board members’ prosperity; they overcame their own adversities. But the reality is that agricultural success is no cookie-cutter template — what worked in Lancaster or Bradford County might not succeed here.

Even so, let’s bear in mind that farmers are a resilient and resourceful group — and none more so than those operating the county’s 28 surviving dairy farms as deteriorating market conditions here and statewide eat away at profitability.

It’s obvious that help will be gratefully accepted from anyone willing to extend it. Efforts to reestablish whole milk in school cafeterias is a good start. So is a “locally produced” protection for milk in local prisons and other state-run institutions.

However, more needs to be done — and without delay.

The Milk Marketing Board’s makeup suggests a preference for large-scale agricultural operations. Pittsburgh’s northward urban creep make mega-farms less than desirable here. Big ag does not fit our landscape, our geography or our local market.

It would far better to take advantage of the growth and approach of a major metropolitan market — Pittsburgh — and solidify our role as the producer of an array of fresh, farm-to-table foods — including dairy products — for that market.

A unified vision and strategy could help the region’s farmers thrive in pursuit of common goals. State experts — including the Milk Marketing Board — could help accommodate such a vision and strategy. Practical application of off-the-shelf technology and social media could help make implementation affordable and efficient.

The alternative is to stand aside as the number of dairy farms continues to dwindle, or they are bought up and turned into residential developments — or maybe a mega-farm.