dairy farming

PJBROWN VT · Mar 30, 2009

I milk 50 cows and the price of milk is the lowest I have ever seen. Does anyone know if the big dairies 1000+ cows are having a rough time also.

Bigdaddy4430 · Mar 30, 2009

Most big dairys buy all there feed,so yes.Cows in Calf. are leaving in mass exodus,which is sad in away.I feel the big dairys are whats causing the low prices.You tell me why somebody needs to milk a 1000 + cows,Ill tell you why,because ther to damn lazy to milk the cows themselves.Its much easier to tell Juan or Pedro to go do it.As long as iam on a roll here lets talk about polution.How many small dairies have you heard of that have had a manure spill? Virtually none they generall come from a mega dairy.The laws today are because of these so called farms,there not farms,just another corporation in our society.

HeyPigFarmer · Mar 30, 2009

I design manure lagoon and manure storage systems for any size dairy that wants one here in Michigan. The big guys are struggling also. Actually the one customer I have that is doing the best only milks 140 head and it’s him and his two sons. Last year they contracted all the milk they could at 21.50/cwt. He’s the only one I have that’s making money. The rest are canceling projects and expansions like crazy. Last year I had 17 expansions and lagoons, this year so far only that one smaller guy. He’s getting a 500,000-gallon lagoon and a new parlor. My biggest project that was supposed to go this year was going to be a complete new dairy with 3 barns 288 wide and 912 feet long, Nearly 50 million gallons of on site manure and waste water storage, a 70 cow rotary parlor, a feed bunker that was 400 wide and 600 long. Yeah, it’s cancelled and the guy is talking about filing bankruptcy for his existing 4100 head operation. They are telling me as long as they can make it to October the price is above the break even point but October is a long way off and if you can’t pay your suppliers between now and then your quarterly payments where are you going to get feed for next year? Not like you can pick your operation up and move it, and when you stiff one person on payment word travels fast.

Anonymous-0 · Mar 30, 2009

Oh big daddy you are really misinformed. Everyone loves to play the blame game, when all farmers are really the same.

Anonymous-0 · Mar 30, 2009

In what respect is he misinformed? I live near some of those maxi-dairies and they are the worst thing to happen to rural NY.

Bigdaddy4430 · Mar 30, 2009

I have 60 cows and 125 acres,ill be here long after the big guys are gone.How am i mis informed?Havent you seen how the hog,chicken,turkey, and grain farming has turned out?Dairy is headed the same direction.

paul · Mar 30, 2009

Grain farming is heading that way too - GPS and RR everything, let someone sit behind the wheel for $10 an hour & let the machines do all the farming, one 'farmer' per county.

It's the natural evolution of business, so can't really fight it.

--->Paul

Anonymous-0 · Mar 30, 2009

Factory farms. I have no use for them at all.

JDemaris · Mar 30, 2009

When I left the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont 30 years ago, I was dairy farming was dying then?

The area of central New York where I live had dairy farms all over 20-30 years ago. Maybe 1/10th of them left. Many sold out during the Regan buy-out. Many others moved up to northern NY where land is cheaper.

Right now, two friends of mine with small Holstein herds - 40-50 cows, are doing fine. But, that's because they both have wive's working for the school system with tax-payer supported overly high salaries and benefit packages. Also, both these guys fix their own tractors and equipment, and have no outstanding loans or mortgages. Newest tractor between either of them is a Deere 4230. Several 4020s, 2520, 4030, a few Fords, and even a few Deere 520s.

To the converse, two brothers near me went big. They are constantly buying or leasing new equipment, land, etc. Have all their repairs done by local tractor dealers. They are really hurting right now. Their wive's also have good jobs, but not enough to off-set interest rates on loans, repair bills, feed costs, etc.

Can't comment on the "big guys paying Pedro to do all the work." Here, even the big guys are working hard, just so far in dept can't seem to get out.

Anonymous-0 · Mar 30, 2009

I guess we can have different opinions then, I don't want to argue about it. There are some very good aspects to large dairying and some negative aspects as well. The same goes for small dairies. Positives and negatives. No matter what though a cow is a cow and they all produce the same amount of poo. there are plenty of regulations that these big dairies have to follow that small ones do not. So you tell me who pollutes more, 10-100 cow dairies or 1-1000 cow dairy?

Anonymous-0 · Mar 30, 2009

They have lots of tractors for such small herds when you consider in the 1960's we milked 36 cows and had only an 8N ford.I admit that it was badly overworked.

HeyPigFarmer · Mar 30, 2009

If you have under 1000 animal units and are not designated as a Confined Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) you do not need to be inspected. If you are a CAFO you are inspected at minimum annually. You have to have your fields tested for phosphorous levels and have to get a nutrient management plan developed to state how much manure can be applied to which fields and when. You have to have proof of these records and manure application rates. You have to calibrate your manure spreaders every year. You have to get a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit from the EPA. How do small dairies get rid of dead animals, bury them, if you are a CAFO this is a fine up to 10K, they must be composted, incinerated or disposed of following the GAAMPs. Rules Regs and Inspections. Now if you are not a CAFO you can put as much of your manure on any field, not follow setbacks, discharge water, no inspections, no collection system for runoff from a feed bunker, no cleaning up of spoiled feed. Small dairies have manure releases too, you just don’t hear about them because they aren’t usually as large and they don’t carry the big fine and the watchful eye of the Sierra Club and others.

Ken Macfarlane · Mar 30, 2009

Not all farmers are the same. Family owned corporations don't behave the same as publicly traded ones. Family farms don't behave the same as corporate farms.

RE big farms:

Large farms have a much high density of livestock and manure. Therefore the consequences of manure spills are higher because they have more of it to spill. On the other hand, it is easier to implement good containment on a large scale and easier to add membranes to the huge amount of manure to capture methane to make power.

Small farmers tend to have higher people to head ratio's so everything from sick cattle to manure spills can usually be noticed quicker.

Locally there are some companies offering manure banking since the small local dairies can't afford the huge costs of construction. I'm sure some coops will become established too.

Dieselrider · Mar 30, 2009

The question I have on the milk prices is, if there is too much milk and thus lower price, why isn't that reflected in the price at the store? It seems the middle men ar all making more money and the price is staying the same for the consumer. They only one losing is the farmer.

jack harmon · Mar 30, 2009

Used to sell supplies to the dairies around years ago,got to know some of those folks really well.the ones I've seen go out were either run by folks who retired,and their kids didnt want to stay hooked up every day of their lives,or were younger guys who were in debt out the wazoo to begin with and couldnt keep up the payments.buissness sense makes a huge difference large or small.I kmow you dont see near as many small dairys around here as what there were 20 years ago.I think a lot of them gone from around here were like I say the kids decided they didnt want to work that hard.braums is the big deal where I'm at and their running 24hrs a day.but even the've been hit by a lot of environtmental stuff in the last few years.

Bob Huntress · Mar 30, 2009

cap & trade

dieseldoc · Mar 30, 2009

I am not considered a CAFO. I am considered a SAFO because my cows are housed in freestall barns longer than 45 days out of the year. I only milk 100-120 and have about that many heifers but I still have to have a manure management plan and if I do have a manure spill I will get fined just like everyone else would.My manure pit holds 1.3 million gallons so if that would leak I would be in big trouble even though the NRCS designed it. Smaller farms ARE NOT exemt from all the regulations. As far as the big dairies hurting more it makes no difference weather you have 50 cows or 5000 cows you make or lose the same amount per cow in the end. It just depends on how much debt per cow you have.

Bigdaddy4430 · Mar 30, 2009

I dont know where your from pigfarmer but here in Mn. its illegal to bury a dead animal.All animals on this farm are picked up by a rendering truck.

NY 986 · Mar 30, 2009

This is more a reply to the other comments than a response to the post. I know it's tough to fight the march towards increases in herd numbers but I miss how it was decades ago. When I was a kid in the 1960's, all you had to do was work hard and keep your debt moderate to succeed in dairy farming. Maintaining a good genetic base in the herd allowed some to profit well and maintain a small enjoyable size for family farms. While good cow genetics are a necessity toward profit, it no longer assures long term survival. Banks will probably hang with the large farms with short term losses with the outlook of prices rising toward summer (business as usual, banks bridging profitability gaps). Small guys will not be so fortunate. The days of pulling one's self up by the bootstraps have just about ended in most farm businesses.

rrlund · Mar 30, 2009

I've been told that the big one near me has their milk contracted for the rest of the year for a pretty good price,so they're safe for the rest of the calander year anyway.

Old Roy · Mar 30, 2009

Just in paper today,
" Local Dairy farmers are bracing against a severe drop in milk prices,just a year after they faced soaring costs.

Milks going rate now is $12.56 a hundred wt. almost half that of $20.49 that is was last year."

Above was quoted from a local paper Farm they are talking about is Butler county, near Pittsburgh Pa.

It goes on to say the farmer is thinking more beef than milk, and will go back to planting "Green" Corn, Soy or what ever it takes.

Anonymous-0 · Mar 30, 2009

Well said, I agree. They say get big or get out. I like 30 smaller farms rather than one big farm.

Anonymous-0 · Mar 30, 2009

In New York you can bury them, we had a barn fire 2 years ago guy lost 7 heifers, county brought up a excavator to bury them.

blinwmiaol.com · Mar 30, 2009

Bullcrap, if all farms are the same then why do the big dairies get multi dollar volume bonuses. I screamed to high heck when MMPA instituted them but we were told it was good for the little guys for the big herds to get more money for the CWT they send.

RodinNS · Mar 30, 2009

Being big is good, to a point......
There's efficiencies that are gained from size, and volume discounts, etc... but once you start bleeding red ink, you can lose a LOT of money very quickly.
I don't know how things are stateside, but things are generally not good in this area, and we haven't had near the price swing.
Input costs are extremly high right now. Fertilizer is double what it was last year though it is nice that fuel is down some...
Generally it's not good.

Rod

PJBROWN VT · Mar 31, 2009

Does not look good at all!!! I was told that the slaughter house are getting over ran with dairy cows.

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