Small farms vanish every day in America's dairyland: 'There ain't no future in dairy'

[Jilly_in_VA]

“Look at that sweet heifer, high, tight udder, in her first lactation, idn’t she sweet?” auctioneer Tom Bidlingmaier shouts as his son Cory plods and slips and pushes the cow around a pen.

Watching it all are about 65 people, mostly men, mostly other small farmers in rubber boots, standing in mud and manure as they murmur their bids. Ron Wallenhorst, the farmer auctioning off his herd of 64 milking cows, is pacing and tapping an empty water bottle against his thigh. He has milked cows in his barn twice a day, every day, after taking over the farm from his father 32 years ago. By the afternoon, all the cows will be gone.

“This is our 401k,” said Ron, 55 years old, his tall frame still hearty though he’s 15 pounds lighter from stress.

The omens before the auction had not been great for Ron and his wife Lori. A couple of weeks before, a few towns over from their own farm in Cuba City, Wisconsin, which is about 70 miles south-west of Madison, they’d watched another complete dairy dispersal of a better herd. That means it produced more milk – 96 pounds (44kg) per cow a day to the Wallenhorsts’ 78 (35kg). The other farmer didn’t make out well financially. “We stood there with tears in our eyes,” Ron said. “Our whole life has been a risk. Deciding to sell was very, very difficult.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/21/small-farms-vanish-every-day-in-americas-dairyland-there-aint-no-future-in-dairy
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This is the other side of the story. Big Ag is ruining America.

[abqtommy]

1. In the summer of 1965 I worked on a dairy farm, then again 3 years later when I was in

college. Even back then it was a risky way to make a living, thanks to our Corporate Overlords.

[Dial H For Hero]

2. Generally speaking, most people are going to buy less expensive milk.

Economy of scale means smaller operations will have a tougher time competing.

[Champp]

9. And you will have vast factory "dairies"

working the cows to factory standards as if they were milk machines.

Gag me with a gullet full of industrial cow squeezings.

[Dial H For Hero]

11. To which the reaction of 99% of those who drink milk will be to simply shrug.

[msongs]

3. humans have no biological need for cow dairy producats. they are a luxury nt

[Dial H For Hero]

4. A rather odd definition of "luxury", that. Humans have no biological need for rice.

Is rice a luxury item?

[GulfCoast66]

26. I just had to say...excellent response.

[Hekate]

28. Growing children do have such a need. Ricketts is no joke. Milk provides protein & calcium...

If an adult community tends toward lactose-intolerance, in individuals it does not come on until past childhood.

You can make a variety of arguments against consuming animal products (such as factory-farming) but the fact remains that eggs and milk are high-quality, nourishing, sources of protein for growing children — and for adults on a tight budget.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. "Small ag" ruins America in its own ways as well.

[Hoyt]

6. My grandparents had a small diary farm from 30s to mid-60s. Tough work, but loved

spending a lot of time on that old farm.

Applaud those who keep small farms going. But recognize the need for large farms in feeding the world.

[hunter]

13. "Factory Farm" dairy is entirely unnecessary.

It's bad for the environment, it's bad for the cows, and it's bad for humans.

Nobody is going to starve if it goes away. The same land that grows food for cows can grow food for humans.

It wouldn't bother me at all if the only dairy products available came from cows raised on green hillsides.

When my children were young we always had a gallon of milk in the refrigerator even though my wife is lactose intolerant and I don't drink milk. We didn't think about it, we'd unconsciously absorbed the four food group bullshit promoted when we were growing up.

Eventually, without any influence from us, our children started drinking the same soy milk their mom drinks. Any liquid milk I bought would sit unused and go bad so I stopped buying milk. That was about twenty years ago. I haven't paid any attention to the price of milk since.

If I was raising children all over again I'd skip the liquid milk entirely.

I keep dry milk packets around for the occasional recipes that ask for milk, and I only use cheese as a seasoning, not as a major source of protein.

I don't think inexpensive meat and dairy products are any kind of human right, especially if they come from animals raised in abusive conditions in a manner that damages the natural environment.

[captain queeg]

7. Where I grew up in Ohio there were small dairy farms everywhere

Most every little town had a slaughterhouse. I worked in meat places for a few years as a young man. Now, all those have dried up, both farms and meat processing plants. Neither of those businesses could survive. Most of the farms couldn't survive and sold their land to developers Both of those types of businesses have been replaced by a small number of larger ones.

[Jilly_in_VA]

8. The problem

is in the way the corporate farms are run and who runs them. You know who owns a big corporate dairy farm in Iowa (or maybe more than one, I haven't checked recently)? Devin Nunes, congresscritter from Fresno, CA, who I don't think even has a home in his district.

[Keth]

10. oh the life

The very hard life. I grew up on a dairy farm in Southwest Missouri. Up everyday at five, chores before school. Get home from school and another round of chores. 7 days a week. Twice a day they had to be milked. Sad to see the family small farms vanishing - I wish I would have appreciated the hard life more when I was a kid.

[ProfessorGAC]

12. This Started, For That Industry, Before 1990

My dad was the guy who drove a semi full of milk to the supermarkets. (Later, for a few years, a customer interface sales guy. Much less physical job.)
The dairy farmers began consolidating into corporations, with each big farmer being the GM of their owned properties. (Like divisions)
Their cost position put them up to buying up smaller competitors.
Then they bought up a few small dairies and began processing & packaging their own product.
Then they started competing on price and made it hard to operate a processing/bottling site.
Dairies started closing & in the 90s they swooped in and bought up equipment for 20¢ on the dollar making their dairies bigger.
Repeat, repeat, repeat.
My dad's dairy was part of a national food products conglomerate, and they were forced out of the northern Illinois market.
My dad got lucky by falling into a new car sales job only a few months after EVERYBODY got laid off.
Did that for 5 years, retired & died a couple years later.
But, conglomeration in dairy has been doing damage for over 30 years.

[Binkie The Clown]

14. With the growth in popularity of plant-based nutrition lots of "Berries for Daries" projects...

... are encouraging farmers to switch from products with declining sales to crops that are growing in popularity.

Dairy farming is pretty bad on the carbon balance scale, and needs to be phased out.

[Elessar Zappa]

15. Small farms will continue to die out.

It’s just the way things are in today’s economy.

[Jilly_in_VA]

16. So we should just shrug and accept it?

[Elessar Zappa]

17. If you want to work on this issue, fine.

I’m just saying this is number 1,000 on my list of personal concerns.

[Jilly_in_VA]

19. It's the economy, s*****

Someone else's living. I guess it doesn't concern you. Okay, fine. Make Devin Nunes and his ilk rich.

[Elessar Zappa]

22. Small farmers aren't a bowl of cherries either.

It’s all bad for the environment in its current form.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

20. Many of them are tax scams or exploit workers to make money, so maybe they could work

on themselves a bit.

[Jilly_in_VA]

21. Yeah

the big ones could.

[Dial H For Hero]

29. Why not?

[Ron Green]

18. Law and public policy can be made to prevent market forces from harming an industry that's

clearly being harmed by Big Ag. There’s just not the political will to do it.

[Bev54]

23. Yes this is exactly why we in Canada prefer to keep our supply managed system

Our farmers get paid by cost of production and are not beholden to the processors, rather it is the other way around. It ensures the family farm survives and our industry is not operated by the large processors, much to their chagrin. They so want to dismantle it in our country as they managed to do in other countries but we want to keep it. I think we may be one of the only countries left standing. The CONservatives cannot be trusted to save it.

[Buns_of_Fire]

24. On the bright side, Mr. Bidlingmaier has a future in Cow Porn.

“Look at that sweet heifer, high, tight udder, in her first lactation, idn’t she sweet?”

Talk like that used to get you Banned in Boston.

[Kaleva]

25. The number of dairy farms in Wi has been in a decline since the 1940's

[GulfCoast66]

27. I studied Agriculture at University. With lots of farmers some dairy farmers.

Every one of them were incorporated. Thus corporate farms. You are crazy if you don’t incorporate because if the farm goes bankrupt if your not unincorporated you lose all your personal wealth.

We can’t feed 8 billion people without the most efficiently agricultural possible. Modern farm equipment runs into hundreds of thousand of dollars for every piece of equipment. Your not affording that with 80 acres if farming row crops. Or trying to run a 40 cow dairy.

I try to eat locally raised meat, eggs and dairy products. But the wife and I make lots of money and they are not as efficient to produce. So many people can’t afford them.

The one group of people I know who don’t lament people leaving farming are ex-farmers who sold their land and live an easier life pulling down a 9-5. Or their kids who watched their parents work themselves to death with no vacation and said ‘no thanks’.

My grandfather was born in 1904. If I remember right. He farmed to feed his wife and 5 kids until after WWII. Had 120 acres at the end with a tractor. Started with 40 with mules. As soon as he could get on with the paper company working their land he did. Was happy to stop growing cotton and corn and switch to raising cows. His son, my uncle, does the same. Still has cows descended from his but got a college education and did well in the paper industry.

Farming sucks. A few souls love it. But not many.