Nonprofit dairy farm

Sounds about right doesn't it. This is a farm 2 miles from me. The story is this farm is a nonprofit educational farm. The farm was once a profitable operation with a dairy store and green house operation. The owners sold the farm (400 acres) to this nonprofit group something like 15 years ago.
The nonprofit group still operates the dairy store and a couple of little shops. The farm has many volunteers that help with a number of tasks and has farm animals on display for the public to view. Because it is a nonprofit it receives grants from government agencies.

The farm does not grow any crops for the livestock.
The cows still cross the road at milking time and their free range chickens are moved around in portable chicken coops.
The Golden whole milk is $6.30 a gallon in glass jugs and the regular whole milk is $5.80 I believe.
Free range eggs are $4.50 doz.

Well, considering many non-profit organizations pay their top exec in the 6 and 7 figure range, is easy to understand how (and why) people would want to run a non-profit farm. You get paid (quite handsomely, likely), get other folks to do much of the work for you, get subsidized by the gov't.....heck, what could go wrong? If there's any kind of disaster, the taxpayers would likely pay to rebuild bigger and better!

WHERE DO I SIGN UP??!!??

Looks like they may be milking the system more than the cows. With the grants, volunteer labor and those prices it shouldn't be hard to stay in business.

Andrews University in SW Michigan is closing down their dairy operation in the summer of 2019. They say it's not even breaking even,it's costing the university to keep it going.

Michigan Milk Producers Association is broken down in to 11 districts. Each of those districts has several locals. Each local elects delegates at a rate of one delegate per 10 members. I was president of a local,was a delegate,served on the district nominating committee and the state resolutions committee. I can tell you first hand and without hesitation,the industry is run by BTOs. I tried bringing up supply management,something like the Canadian quota system as an example,but it would drop like a lead balloon every time I'd bring it up. The BTOs who run the industry have no intention of leveling off or ending their expansion.

It's like watching a snowmobile drag race on water. There's no destination,no finish line,it's just go as far and as fast as you can until you sink. I have the utmost sympathy and respect for the smaller dairy farmers who just want to make a living,but if these big operations go under,I want to be there to take a leak on their graves.

My dad worked the summer of '68 at the Andrews University dairy. Told me they had 280 cows then.

Name one industry that is not run by BTO's or at least headed down that road.

Dairy farmers have for years complained that it is a 24/7 365 day job with health insurance cost that are out of this world.
Working for a BTO provides a 40 hour week with vacation and benefit package.
BTO's can also undercut any bodies price so the consumer wins also.
Like they say you can not have your cake and eat it to.

Trouble is,those leaders in the industry have pretty much a full time job with it and don't have time to be home milking their own cows like the smaller producers have to do,so policy is set by the big guys.

Rr, I was going to say the same, I saw the story on that research dairy farm this morning. They said because it's a learning center they have higher costs, but was it losing $600,000-900,000 a year the last 3?

It's tough being a family dairy, doesn't sound like it will really work long term any more. Everyone realized it's cheaper to be bigger per gallon, so everyone that could get $$$ got bigger, massively bigger, and produce so much more milk that it's now oversupplied and cheaper yet. An endless cycle that won't end until there is only 4-5 'dairies' and all the workers are visa folk. No farmers needed.

Paul

Dairy farming is headed down the same road as hogs and chickens huge producers and very small producers that sell directly to the public

It is safe to say that the person that heads this organization makes a lot less than six figures.

The farm recently had a fund raiser to build a new and modern barn for the herd and I must say that the goal of 300,000 was reached. Here is a link for more information.
http://www.thelandsathillsidefarms.org/

The days are even numbered for the small organics. They've over done it in their creation of demand. The food processors and BTOs have teamed up to supply all the demand. They're headed down the crapper with every other smaller producer.

Here?s the one I was the mechanic on 900,000 rotary barn is empty

Dairy is complicated, to say the least. And to compare milk prices in Canada with the prices paid to farmers is further complicated by the fact we measured our milk by liquid volume in metric, and you fellas state side measure your milk by hundred weight. Then gator in the exchange on the dollar, and you can get dizzy quick. So here in Canadian $ is what dairy farmers were paid per hundred litres for milk of average composition, $71.00 per hundred litres. Last month as close as I can figure, farmers in MI were paid, for comparison sake , in Canadian $ , and per hundred litres , $37.00. Little more than half. I know it cost just the same to feed a cow in Can. as it does in US, so I understand exactly how hard the farmers in MI are being squeezed. The problem I have is the prices you guys pay for milk in the store is almost the same as the price here in Canada. Processors and retailers are making big money on the farmers back. I think once the BTO farms get large enough and vertically integrated with the processing industry, the smaller farms will have nowhere to sell their milk. Then watch the retail price go up

I do not think that is true for dairy in some states.

Very small producers get caught up in the pasteurization laws.

Non profit? That covers a lot of dairy farms now days. To make things worse here in Midwest the hay prices have gotten high last couple months. At a farm auction yesterday in Stockton, MO, 4x5 grass---$75 Had 400 for a total of $30,000. Around $175 a ton.

I don't believe that the direct-to-consumer small farm is going out any time soon. (And by "small" I mean less than a few hundred acres.) My friend raises produce in southeast Colorado and has over 1000 participants in his CSA program. This is a lot for an area where you'd need to drive an hour to get to a city larger than 7500 people. He's not organic but even so the appeal of knowing where their food comes from must appeal to many and they are willing to pay more than box store prices to buy it. Also note that this is NOT a wealthy area by any stretch of the imagination - it's fifth from the bottom for household income by county in Colorado - so it's not like folks have money to just throw away. In addition to his CSA he also sells at farmer's markets in Colorado Springs. They've actually been doing this for a long time - I got involved with selling at these markets when I worked for my friend's father nearly 30 years ago when we were in high school. Based on this farm's success and others I've read about I'd say that there is a bright future in direct-to-consumer farming, with or without the "organic" label.

Probably not exactly on the same subject as the original post, but I gotta vent.
My county has three large dairy herds, "large", as in several thousand dairy cows in each one. One of the large ones has 4,000 total head and is wanting to add 6,000 more.
They put a couple of million dollars in expanding their buildings and will probably be building another large one within a couple of years.
So if my public education math is correct, they will have 10,000 head very soon.
AND YET, they claim they are not making money in the dairy business. Their solution to the problem is to flood the market with many more cows..and much more milk.
I also talked to the construction crew that has finished up the latest building. After this site, they were off to Texas to build a shed that will stretch a quarter of a mile long to house many more thousand cows down there.
I sure hope our government doesn't bail any of these guys out, because the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

You want to check the number of zeros after the 9 . I find that number unrealistic.

(quoted from post at 19:38:22 07/01/18) I don't believe that the direct-to-consumer small farm is going out any time soon. (And by "small" I mean less than a few hundred acres.) My friend raises produce in southeast Colorado and has over 1000 participants in his CSA program. This is a lot for an area where you'd need to drive an hour to get to a city larger than 7500 people. He's not organic but even so the appeal of knowing where their food comes from must appeal to many and they are willing to pay more than box store prices to buy it. Also note that this is NOT a wealthy area by any stretch of the imagination - it's fifth from the bottom for household income by county in Colorado - so it's not like folks have money to just throw away. In addition to his CSA he also sells at farmer's markets in Colorado Springs. They've actually been doing this for a long time - I got involved with selling at these markets when I worked for my friend's father nearly 30 years ago when we were in high school. Based on this farm's success and others I've read about I'd say that there is a bright future in direct-to-consumer farming, with or without the "organic" label.

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Gotta agree. I know one guy who claims he cleared 30K yast year on 20 acres of produce and some free range chickens . I think he's being honest. Yea it's labor intensive. His wife works a job in town and pulls down good money too....over and above that 30K.
Rick

From what I been reading it sounds like all dairy farms are non-prophet now days.

They will never go under. The govt. won't let them. There will be so few of them soon that if one goes under it will disrupt the whole industry. Can you say General Motors?

Bruce I think he meant that they had just spent $900,000 on a new rotary parlor/setup.

900.000$ he had a company come in and try to build it they ended up leaving with about half the parts and then he had to pat somebody else to come in and finish building the milk barn the manufacturer finally sent guys in from whatever foreign country the thing came from and helped get the thing doing it was a mess . Only milking 200 cows on 40$ unicorn milk then the market went low and they dropped the contract .

Gambles: What is happening in the US dairy production is the profit per cow is getting smaller. So it takes more cows to meet the expenses of the average farm family. So you have the economics of size effecting the business.

In the 1980s the average diary cow would general an annual profit of around $500. So fifty cows would clear $26K. So if you would adjust for inflation that profit per cow would need to be around $1500. The profit is around $250 per cow per year. So a 100 cow herd is only clearing around $25K. With milk prices falling and feed prices raising that could easily only be $100-150 per cow this year.

So the larger diaries have higher building/equipment cost in total but on a per cow basis they have much less than the average diary farm. Then they will usually have a lower feed cost too. Volume buying of non farm raised products is a big part of this. Then add in they can get premiums for bulk/volume delivery. So they have a lower feed cost and higher income. So they will win this battle over time.

I also think we will see vertical integration in the dairy business. There are fewer and fewer processors. There are getting to be fewer producers. The same thing happened in the hog and poultry business. You do not raise hogs or poultry without having a contract for sale. There just is not any cash sale market for either product anymore. There is less freedom for both the producer and processor. They both gain on the other side by having a more stable price and supply. Also the public is demanding a trial clear back to the producer of where/what food comes from. With the current system that is impossible in the dairy industry. Smaller producers and processors both have to commingle milk to ship it economical and have large enough batches to process. So if I am a store buying milk it could have come from hundreds or thousands of producers. That makes traceability next to impossible.

I do not like this change in all of farming. It is nothing new. Farms have been consolidation for 150 years. The 160 acre homestead could rarely support a family long term 150 year ago. So even then the farms soon where getting larger. With the equipment and technology we have to day that is going faster.

In reality the organic market is getting bigger all the time and most organic consumers will buy from small
local grown operations before they go to a place like Whole Foods.There large producers are skirting the Organic rules as they are called Industrial Organic and the organic consumers know who they are and avoid their products if they can.Around my area small organic producers are doing better than ever and more of them all the time over in the Shenandoah Valley a group of dairy farms that are
organic have built their own milk processing plant so they can sell directly to consumers.The organic poultry growers around Harrisonburg VA back in the Winter bought a $900,000 chicken slaughter facility.Once a chicken slaughtered there is a label put on the package IDing the farm the chicken came from and the buyer can use that label to go to view a cam and pictures of the farm.Some even have a live cam of the chickens.The organic movement is also an anti large producer movement too its not just about the food itself.On the other hand a small conventional dairy farm is producing the same exact product as a huge dairy farm so there are no reasons or selling points on why a consumer should buy from a small conventional operation price of product is the only difference.

There are several places in VA where small producers have put in milk processing operations,Up at Remington VA on US 29 a diary farm processing its own milk and makes various products.They opened up what looks like an old style Dairy Queen where the customers walk up and order outside.Its where US 29 and Route 28 meet, every time I go by there the place is packed I stop when I don't have the trailer on the truck and I'll say their Ice Cream and Milk Shakes are delicious.They did a story about them in the Washington Post and that really got them the customers.Literally millions of potential customers in the area.

In my area there is a paper that comes in the mail that the local growers put out listing many of the local growers what they produce etc its up to about 15 pages now.Plus there are a large group of local farmers markets and most all are busy when they are open,local Tractor Supply has a place in their parking lot they let local growers set up and sell every Saturday and they have a small poultry/animal sale there one Saturday a month.

There was a fellow that bought a chisel plow from me this Spring that had a dairy farm operation he sold the cows and went to vegetable growing and direct sales to consumers he has built a roadside stand and sells at farmers markets,said he makes more money now than he ever did running the dairy.I'm going by his place later this Summer sounds like a nice operation.If I was younger starting in farming It'd be in direct sales to customers.Another lady I know has put in about 15 acres of grapes of all types she has been doing the pick your own deal for over 10 years says she does good.Vineyards are all over the place here in Central Virginia many have their own store and some do things like host parties,weddings etc.These aren't cheap places either
President's family bought a $17 million vineyard just out of Charlottesville close to Monticello and Ash Lawn a few years ago.