[AT] Dairy farming. Dying industry?

[Grant Brians]

California is now the leading fluid milk and cheese producing state. The 
production level went up every year - until last year. The second or third 
from the last dairy went out last week in our county, down from over 300 in 
the 1930's and about 10 when I moved here in 1973. Even the mega dairies in 
the San Joaquin Valley and Arizona (5,000 to 30,000 cows) have stopped 
expanding and new ones being built.... The bottom line is that milk prices 
have once again been below the cost of production for so long that it has 
killed even our state's alfalfa prices for the first time in a long time.
    We have a broken system where we subsidize the importers of dairy 
products because they have a better lobby in the administration and previous 
Congress than the American farmer and then say that retail food prices are 
too high.... As a full time vegetable farmer, I look at the Mexican, Central 
American, South American, Chinese, even Israeli imports and the structure of 
the incentives for the grocery companies to import rather than buy American 
and shake my head. It is just illogical and contrary to our best interests.
        Grant Brians
        Hollister, California
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "CEE VILL" <cvee60 at hotmail.com>
To: <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Sunday, February 25, 2007 8:30 AM
Subject: [AT] Dairy farming. Dying industry?


> With the list being pretty quiet, it seems a good time to toss in this 
> article from a Pa. newspaper which I read yesterday.  Sad but interesting 
> read if you are interested.
>
> Charlie V.
>
> P.S.   (tractor ref.) These guys use a lot of tractors.  Fodder for future 
> collectors.
>
>    02/24/2007
> Casey hears concerns of local dairy farmers
> BY DAVID SINGLETON
> TIMES SHAMROCK WRITER
>
>
> SOUTH CANAAN --- As he walked U.S. Sen. Bob Casey through his Wayne County 
> barn, Joe Davitt summed up the crisis confronting Northeastern 
> Pennsylvania's dairy farmers in a tidy 16 words.
>
> "We provide a product to feed the world," the 37-year-old dairyman
> said, "and we can't afford to feed our families."
>
> With Mr. Davitt's barn as the stage and part of his herd as the backdrop, 
> Mr. Casey listened for more than an hour Friday as about 20 area dairy 
> farmers pleaded their case for federal assistance to help keep their 
> operations afloat.
>
> The Scranton Democrat, who sits on the Senate Agriculture Committee, came 
> to Davitt Farm to discuss the 2007 Farm Bill now pending in Congress. 
> Final passage is expected in the fall.
>
> Mr. Davitt and others said they can't wait that long. "We're asking you to 
> help. This is the last straw," Mr. Davitt, who took over the family farm 
> in 1992, told the senator. "We need money now. We can't wait six months. 
> We'll be out of business in six months."
>
> The problem is production costs that are far outstripping the prices 
> farmers receive for their milk, which is sold in units of 100 pounds ---  
> about 11.6 gallons. Mr. Davitt said his costs are $19 to $20 per 
> hundredweight; he's paid $15 per hundredweight --- $13.50 after hauling 
> costs are deducted.
>
> The farmers told Mr. Casey they need a simplified milk pricing system that 
> sets the minimum price at a level closer to their actual production costs.
>
> Brian Smith, 44, who has 75 dairy cows on the farm he has operated in 
> Damascus Township since 1993, said every other industry passes its cost on 
> to consumers. He believes milk consumers would be willing to pay more.
>
> "What we need to do --- bottom line --- is get more money for milk," Mr. 
> Smith told the senator. "This is urgent. You need to understand that."
>
> Will Keating, who operates a farm near Cortez, told Mr. Casey there were 
> 1,200 dairy farms in Wayne County in the 1960s. By 1997, the number had 
> dipped to 240. There are fewer than 100 today.
>
> Mr. Casey, who noted dairy farming is a $4 billion industry in 
> Pennsylvania, said the Farm Bill presents an opportunity to address the 
> farmers' concerns. While he will do his best to meet their short-term and 
> long-term needs, he said, "I don't have a magic wand."
>
> "I'm not going to promise anything other than we are going to work very 
> hard on it," the senator said.
>
> As he walked through the barn with the senator, Mr. Davitt carried his 
> 9-month-old son, Dylan.
>
> "What it is going to come down to," he told the senator, "is instead of 
> passing heritage down to this guy --- like my father learned from his 
> father, and I learned from my father --- it's going to be history.
>
> "It's going to be history, not heritage, because once I quit, that's it. 
> It's not coming back."
>
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