Challenges for Dairy Farmers

By Sarah B.

The economy is suffering. Healthcare plans fill the news. In the midst of this, the struggles of dairy farmers are pushed off to the side. What the country does not realize, though, is how much the troubled situation of the farmers effects everyone else. Dairy farmers around the country are struggling to stay afloat. Patti Keesler, a local dairy farmer, said, “You just have to grit your teeth and hang on.” Because these farmers do not know what the price of milk will be until it reaches stores, they send their milk off when the truck arrives and “hope for the best,” she said.

When the milk truck arrives on Keesler’s farm, her milk is measured, and driven off to a production company. In turn, the company sends Keesler the money she earned – the amount depends on what the hunderedweight of milk is currently. Most of the money is spent before she even receives it; she has to pay for the milk truck and the gas the milk truck uses, among other things. Once Keesler is paid, she has to pay her staff, the cows’ feed and hay, and the neverending repairs and updates for the machinery.

Randy Whiting, a beef farmer in the Town of Hancock, said, “The people of America are used to a cheap and abundant food supply.” This puts those making legislative decisions in a tough position. The government can either raise the milk price for the thousands of dairy farmers, or it can keep milk prices low for the millions of consumers.

Who determines the price of milk? According to keepmilkpriceslow.com, “The federal government determines the minimum price that dairy farmers should be paid for raw milk based on a formula that is staggeringly complex and roughly follows the price of block cheddar cheese at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.”

Independent family dairy farms are especially hard hit. Though they add to the surplus of milk, they are by no means the cause of it. Factory farms are the largest producer of milk. There, cows are given hormones to make them produce more than is natural, and milking is continuous. Terry McCarthy, Keesler’s brother-in-law, explained the way Keesler runs her farm. The cows only need to be milked for about four minutes each. Keesler has four machines and about forty cows. There is no way Keesler could keep up with the pace of factory farmers. Not only that, but the country imports powdered milk to keep milk prices even lower on the market.