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Bowen Ryan

Mr. Rudebusch

English Comp. IV

20 December 2023

Small Dairy Farms in America: What Happened? What is the Future of Dairy Farming?

According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), In 1970, America

was home to 648,000 dairy farms, and in 2006, the number of dairy farms in the US was 75,000.

What could have possibly happened to all of these dairy farms? Many people assume that

America is better off to have a few large, and very efficient dairy farms producing most of the

milk instead of having a bunch of small dairy farms all over the country. But if all we had was

big dairy farms making all of America’s milk in a few strategically placed locations, it would

overlook the fact that it would be very harmful for the future of small-scale (family) dairy

farming, and could also be detrimental to small communities all over the US.

Milking cows is a full time job, cows have to be milked twice a day, everyday. For many

years, that was the livelihood for a lot of Americans. Dairy farming is not just a job, it is a way of

life. The cows don’t stop milking for Christmas, Thanksgiving, or any major holiday. 365 days a

year, dairy farmers have to get up before dawn and milk. I personally have milked cows for two

years for two different dairy farmers. The work isn’t easy, and the cows are high maintenance,

but it is a rewarding job in the end. The cows that these families work with everyday are almost a

part of the family, and have supported generations of those families. This is the first reason why

dairy farming isn’t something that most people can just give up. The amount of time, and

dedication into the dairy cattle from the farmers is untouchable compared to most jobs/industries.
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If you’ve ever talked to someone who milks cows, or used to milk cows, they will

usually tell you that the reason for small dairy’s quitting is because they have to either “get big,

or get out.” That is a decision that every dairy farmer has had to make. Some families chose to

build large and improved facilities, while the majority of farmers had to sign off on their dairy

operation. There are still most definitely smaller sized dairy farms all over the US, but it is

getting to a point of rapid decline. A dairy farmer in rural South Dakota said that “there used to

be a dairy farm every square mile” where he grew up. Getting up before school to milk cows was

not uncommon at all for a lot of country kids in past years. Nowadays, if you do not have the

money, or investors to add on or build new facilities, you are going to struggle to make profit.

Let me give you a hypothetical example that I heard from a Wisconsin dairy farmer on a PBS

NewHour story. Back before the demand for dairy products was so widespread, you could have a

cow that would make you 10 dollars a day (hypothetically), but now with costs so high that one

cow will make you 1 dollar per day; this means that to make up for that margin, you will need

nine more cows. Basically, if you are all of a sudden getting way less money for one cow than

you did before, you are going to require more cows total to make up for the lost margin. You

may be wondering what these “high costs” are. Well with recent inflation, it has caused a spike in

the cost of feed (corn, silage, hay), diesel fuel, fertilizer to grow their feed products and much

more. All of these costs are called “input costs.” Input cost is all of the money that you put into

your cattle or crops to grow or maintain them. Your “output” would be all of the money that

comes back to the farm after you sell the products. When the input costs are so high, and the

milk prices low, it is impossible to make any kind of profit. For most dairy farmers, their
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operation is their life-savings. All of the money they make usually goes right back into the

operation with little to spare.

In recent years, countries in Southeast Asia and China have been relying on outsiders

such as New Zealand, The US, and Europe to maintain their supply of dairy products for their

consumers. China in particular, has had a substantial growth in dairy consumption among their

citizens. According to the USDA, China is the “primary source of demand growth in global dairy

markets.” In other words, China plays a big part in how much of a foreign demand from the US

is needed for dairy products. In 2014, China launched an initiative to expand their trade network

with other countries. This made it easier for distributors of different agricultural products to have

a market with China. China bought a lot of milk then, and because of this, in 2014 there

happened to be some record milk prices. This was a good year for dairy farmers, and it was a

time where people could make a profit and not even out with their production costs. Many

people even updated, or expanded with new facilities. But not too long after this, in 2015, there

was almost too much milk being produced, and less of a foreign demand for US dairy products.

Russia even put a ban on dairy imports from other countries. New Zealand, which is much closer

to Asia, became 50% of China’s foreign dairy products distributed. The demand for the United

States role in Chinese dairy products dropped. This led to drastically lower milk prices for US

dairy farmers, and a lot of farmers selling out. Data from the USDA shows that 691 Wisconsin

dairy farms sold out in the year 2018. Obviously, though, China and Russia cannot be blamed for

the dairy farm crisis in America, there are numerous factors that come into play with the decline

of dairy farms.
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Economics basic “supply and demand” is the cycle that many dairy farmers have been

washed through during the downfall of dairy farming. It is simply this, when there is a demand

for a product such as milk, farmers are going to have to make up for it. Over time, there has been

a drastic increase in large dairy farms seemingly being strategically placed all over the country.

These farms have anywhere from 5,000 to 25,000 cows. Picture this, you have a large farm

milking 5,000 cows, if this farm is bringing tanker truck loads everyday for a milk/cheese

processing plant, why would they want to go pick up a tiny amount of milk from the other guys

milking 50-80 cows down the road? It is obviously more efficient to pick up one load at a time,

than having to go to 5-6 different farms to fill the tanker trailer. The way it is going, milk is no

longer going to be a product that comes from many family farms, it will be a product that is

produced only by large dairy farm corporations with a lot of investors. Riverview LLP, is an

Agricultural Cooperative that focuses on Beef, Dairy, and Crop production. They have Dairy

operations in MN, SD, and AZ. As writer John Oncken from The Wisconsin Farmer reported,

“Riverview has over 300 investors with 70% being company employees. The company now

includes over a dozen dairies and nearly 100,000 cows.” I believe these types of companies are

going to be the thing that kills the small American dairy farmer.

So what happens when all of these small dairy farmers sell out? Well large dairy

corporations will buy the land and facilities and expand. So if it gets to a point where there are

only a few big dairy farms around, and the small farmers move into urban areas, then the small

communities end up dealing with the consequences. The ex-farmers who move away won’t be

buying groceries in their small town, sending their kids into the school, buying fuel and supplies
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from other businesses who relied on their business. This is something to be concerned about,

dairy farming has been a way of life for many people, and now it is vanishing. It isn’t necessarily

an evil thing if there are only big dairy’s producing all of the country's milk, but it is, and has

been crushing the careers of many small-time farmers who dedicated their lives to their milk

cows. If you want to support small dairy farmers, you can buy their products, and you can

advocate for their livelihood. But at this point in time, it might be a little too late.
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Works Cited

Delgado, Christopher L. “The New Politics of Meat and Milk: Protecting the World's Small

Farms.” Chronicle of Higher Education, 12/14/2001,

Erba, Eric M. and Andrew M. Novakovic. “The Evolution of Milk Pricing and Government

Intervention in Dairy Markets” Dairy markets,

https://dairymarkets.org/pubPod/pubs/EB9505.pdf, Accessed 12 Dec, 2023.

Delgado, Christopher L. “The New Politics of Meat and Milk: Protecting the World's Small

Farms.” Chronicle of Higher Education, 12/14/2001,

https://research.ebsco.com/c/td6oan/viewer/html/hfh7xpodib. Accessed 12 Dec, 2023.

Lakhani, Nina. “US dairy policies drive small farms to 'get big or get out' as monopolies get

rich.” The Guardian, January 31, 2023,

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/31/us-dairy-policies-hurt-small-farm

s-monopolies-get-rich. Date Accessed, 7 December, 2023.

Oncken, John. “Riverview Dairy's expansion covers five states” Wisconsin State Farmer, 12 July,

2022,

https://www.wisfarmer.com/story/opinion/columnists/2022/07/12/riverview-dairys-expan

sion-covers-five-states/7816591001/

Statista. "Leading 10 U.S. states based on number of milk cows from 2020 to 2022 (in 1,000s)”

Statista, Sep 20, 2023,

https://www.statista.com/statistics/194962/top-10-us-states-by-number-of-milk-cows/

Tremblay, Hannah. Dairy's Decline: “The Harsh Reality for Farmers and What We Can Do

About It” Farm Aid, 14 Nov. 2023.

https://www.farmaid.org/blog/dairys-decline-harsh-reality-for-farmers/
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United States Department of Agriculture, “USDA ERS - Farming and Farm Income.” USDA,

https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/far

ming-and-farm-income/. Date Accessed 7 Dec. 2023.

Wagoner, Rachel. “A Brief History Of Dairy Pricing” Farm and Dairy, January 11, 2020,

://www.farmanddairy.com/top-stories/a-brief-history-of-dairy-pricing/592392.html#:~:tex
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