CAZENOVIA,
Wisconsin, December 24, 2004, Chicago Tribune via CropChoice:
Bernard Deitelhoff considers himself a dairy farmer,
but his day begins long before his Holsteins amble into
his barn to get milked.
To maintain a farm that has been in his family for
five generations, Deitelhoff, 45, works a second job,
driving the back roads of central Wisconsin at dusk,
and again in the middle of the night, to deliver bulk
mail to rural post offices six days a week.
He usually sleeps in the back of his Chevy van, in
the parking lot of a Mobil station near the post office
in Portage, so he doesn't have to drive an hour to work
in the morning. It means a little extra sleep: When
he sleeps in the van, Deitelhoff's alarm doesn't go
off until 3:30 a.m. He spends the next 3 1/2 hours hauling
mail on dark, hilly roads while he sips Diet Coke, which
"tastes just like coffee when it's warm."
In seven years he has flipped his mail truck on an
icy road and hit seven deer, several turkeys and an
owl.
"That owl was sitting in the road and jumped right
up and took off the antenna," he said. "The
radio hasn't worked the same since."
Many farmers like Deitelhoff are feeling squeezed by
periodic price slumps, foreign competition and more
efficient mega-farms, and are taking second jobs. Deitelhoff
views his mail route as "a means to support my
hobby."
He is trying to avoid becoming part of another trend:
Wisconsin has lost nearly four dairy farms a day in
recent years. Almost a third of Wisconsin's dairy farmers
shut down from 1997 through 2002, with the number dropping
from 24,065 to 16,866.
The Deitelhoff farm also is part of another endangered
group: midsize farms.
According to the most recent Census of Agriculture,
published every five years by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture and released last summer, the number of
tiny farms and very large farms is growing. But midsize
farms are on the wane.
In traditional dairy states such as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania
and New York, the farms remain relatively small compared
to those out West. As a result, the nexus of America's
dairy industry is shifting to such places as New Mexico
and Idaho with cheap land and fewer people to complain
about the smells wafting from a 5,000-cow dairy farm.
Wisconsin still leads the nation in the number of dairy
farms, though California is No. 1 in milk production.
Wisconsin is clinging to the title of the nation's top
cheesemaker, with California closing in fast. Wisconsin
residents so identify with the dairy industry that they
refer to themselves as "cheeseheads" and voted
overwhelmingly that the quarter honoring the state include
a dairy cow and a hunk of cheese.
While the number of farms plummeted in Wisconsin, the
total number of milk cows declined by only 9 percent,
indicating that dairy farms are getting bigger. But
Wisconsin still lags far behind emerging dairy states
in the West. In 2002, for instance, Wisconsin's dairy
farms averaged 74 cows; that same year, New Mexico dairy
farms had an average of 836 cows.
To combat the trend, state officials created a program
to encourage dairy farmers to expand or to find a niche
such as organic, and the state is emphasizing the quality
of Wisconsin's dairy products over its Western rivals.
But some argue that the state isn't doing nearly enough.
"Wisconsin and Minnesota basically have these
invisible signs saying `No Large Dairies Need Apply,'"
said Mary Ledman, a dairy industry analyst who grew
up on a 50-cow dairy farm in Wisconsin. Noting that
other states such as South Dakota and Iowa are welcoming
large-scale dairies, she said, "You don't see that
kind of welcome wagon in the Upper Midwest, and as a
result, we are exporting our dairy industry elsewhere."
Ledman said opponents of large-scale dairies are ignoring
the reality of the business. Traditional small dairy
farms like the one she grew up on are so inefficient
and antiquated that they can't compete; as a result,
she said, most children of dairy farmers have found
work elsewhere.
"Minnesota and Wisconsin need to decide whether
they want a dairy industry," she added. "And
if they do, they have to realize that it's not going
to look like their daddy's dairy industry."
Call to focus on quality
But Tony Ends, a vegetable farmer in southern Wisconsin,
said the state should focus on distinguishing the quality
of its dairy products because it doesn't have the space,
weather or resources to compete with Western states
to produce the cheapest milk. The big dairies, he said,
simply create a glut of milk that is driving down the
price.
"The price of milk is what is driving farmers
out of business," said Ends, who along with his
neighbors is fighting to close a mega-dairy in his neighborhood
because of health, environmental and animal-welfare
concerns. "Wisconsin will never outproduce California.
What Wisconsin needs to do is distinguish itself with
specialty cheese and quality."
Just north of the Illinois border, in the tiny town
of Brodhead, Dan and Mary Monson represent the new face
of Wisconsin dairy farms. They operate a dairy that
is as much factory as farm, a meticulous, high-tech
operation with 1,500 cows and 20 full-time employees.
Those with experience at milking start at $2,000 a month
for a 54-hour work week.
Both the Monsons grew up on small, traditional dairy
farms in Wisconsin, but after spending five years working
in California's expansive dairy area, they returned
to Wisconsin and sought to replicate what they learned.
"I realized I didn't want to do what my parents
did because I wanted a life," said Dan Monson,
42, explaining that small dairy farms often are broke
and the operators are chained to their cows seven days
a week. "I couldn't go back to Wisconsin and milk
40 cows."
So with the financial backing of a successful California
dairy farm family, the Monsons opened the $5.5 million
Spring Grove Dairy in 1999, then the largest in the
state. The 80-acre farm now operates around the clock,
and the cows are milked three times a day, filling two
semitrailer tankers full of milk.
The cows at Spring Grove Dairy spend their days in
long metal barns on concrete floors with fresh sawdust
and shredded tires as bedding. A computer keeps close
tabs on how much milk each cow is producing via a computer
chip around each animal's neck.
The manure is regularly flushed out of the barns into
clay-lined lagoons behind the barns, and the liquid
manure is later injected into the soil of surrounding
farmland as fertilizer.
While Monson said his "ag neighbors" have
been supportive, he acknowledged that some others have
griped about the smell. But he points out that his family,
which includes four children, lives on the property,
and he argues that his farm has done more good than
harm to the community.
With Monson's ready and abundant supply of milk, a
shuttered cheese plant in nearby Juda reopened, creating
80 to 100 new jobs.
"I feel really good about that," Monson said.
Monson acknowledged he misses the slower pace of a
smaller dairy, though with his full-time staff, he regularly
gets to take days off. He and his family spent this
week in Florida on vacation.
Monson and his wife still love the idea of a traditional
dairy farm, but the economics today simply don't make
that possible "without putting your entire life
at risk."
Monson said he and his wife, both of whom work full-time
on the dairy, earn in the low six figures combined with
their salaries and profit-sharing.
An old-time operation
Two hours north of Spring Grove Dairy, Deitelhoff's
124-acre farm looks so different that it's hard to believe
it produces the same commodity. The hillside behind
the barn is strewn with farm equipment in various states
of repair, and the milking parlor is in a battered barn.
The irony of Deitelhoff's second job as a mail carrier
is that he's too busy to milk his cows. That chore is
left to his wife, Cyndi, and their six children, who
range in age from 6 to 14 and straggle to the barn at
5 a.m. to get started. The oldest children milk the
cows while Cyndi supervises the youngest, who lug pails
of milk to feed the calves.
After Deitelhoff arrives home from his mail route about
7 a.m., he eats breakfast, then spends the day doing
odd jobs on the farm, puffing on little cigars while
he cuts hay or fiddles with equipment. By the time he
jumps back in his mail truck for his evening route,
about 5 p.m., Cyndi and the kids return to the barn
to milk the cows a second time.
"I've been milking for a year, and I'm already
sick of it," said 10-year-old Olivia. The oldest,
Matthew, said the other students at their school "think
we're insane" for getting up so early.
But for the occasional grumbling, the Deitelhoff children
sang songs, danced and cavorted around the barn while
milking cows one November evening. The two youngest,
Sylvia and Sylvester, climbed over the backs of cows
with such names as Alexandria, Ohio and Spot.
"I call them my six pack," said Cyndi, referring
to her children. "They do good, but they can give
you a headache."
At a time when so many dairy farmers have gone under,
Deitelhoff said he has survived by taking a second job,
reducing his herd from 60 to 40 cows, growing most of
his own feed and taking care of sick cows himself rather
than paying for a veterinarian. His family, which had
no health insurance for three years, is now covered
by a free state insurance plan.
"We're actually considered the working poor,"
he said. "That's why people have left the dairy
industry."
Deitelhoff said he and Cyndi, a part-time bartender
and cook at a local restaurant, earn $40,000 annually
from their off-farm employment and net about $12,000
in a good year from the milk produced by their cows.
"We've talked about selling out, but I don't want
to leave the land. It's pretty here," Deitelhoff
said. "I'm just stubborn, I guess. I keep thinking
it will turn around and get better. I don't think it
will."
Deitelhoff isn't the only midsize farmer who feels
squeezed.
Too small to compete against industrial-size farms
that supply global markets or too big to sell to niche
markets such as farmer's markets or roadside stands,
many midsize farms are being forced out.
Midsize farms fading
 |
America's
dairyland no exception to national farm
loss
Between 1997 and 2002, only the smallest
farms (those with sales of less than $1,000
a year) and the largest farms (those with
sales of $500,000 or more) grew in number.
The consolidation is especially felt by
Wisconsin dairy farmers, who expect to see
a huge reduction in smaller farms over the
next four years.
NUMBER OF WISCONSIN DAIRY HERDS
BY SIZE
| Herd size |
2004 |
2009* |
% change |
| 1-29 cows |
2,200 |
1,150 |
-48% |
| 30-49 |
3,900 |
2,300 |
-41% |
| 50-99 |
6,500 |
4,700 |
-28% |
| 100-199 |
1,900 |
1,930 |
+2% |
| 200-499 |
700 |
890 |
+27% |
| 500+ |
200 |
330 |
+65% |
| Total |
15,400 |
11,300 |
-27% |
CHANGE IN NUMBER OF U.S. FARMS,
1997-2002
| Farm size* |
1997 |
2002 |
% change |
| Less than $1,000 |
415,952 |
570,919 |
+27% |
| $1,000 - 2,499 |
277,074 |
255,639 |
-8% |
| $2,500 - 4,999 |
265,667 |
213,326 |
-25% |
| $5,000 - $9,999 |
267,575 |
223,168 |
-20% |
| $10,000 - 19,999 |
228,297 |
197,967 |
-15% |
| $20,000 - 24,999 |
65,342 |
58,190 |
-12% |
| $25,000 - 39,999 |
123,854 |
109,310 |
-13% |
| $40,000 - 49,999 |
55,775 |
48,596 |
-15% |
| $50,000 - 99,999 |
163,510 |
140,479 |
-16% |
| $100,000 - 249,999 |
190,919 |
159,052 |
-20% |
| $250,000 - 499,999 |
91,503 |
81,694 |
-12% |
| $500,000 + |
70,408 |
70,642 |
0% |
Sources: USDA, Wisconsin Agricultural Statistics
Service |
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In the five years covered by the latest agriculture
census, the number of the smallest farms, with sales
of less than $1,000 annually, grew by 27 percent, from
415,952 in 1997 to 570,919 in 2002. The number of the
largest farms, with annual sales of more than $500,000,
inched up by less than 1 percent, from 70,408 to 70,642.
The remainder of America's farms, 70 percent of the
total, declined by 14 percent.
Overall, the Agriculture Department's five-year census
provides a much bleaker picture of what is happening
on American farms than a November USDA report that trumpeted
record farm incomes for the second year in a row. But
even an author of a farm income report said recent high
prices for everything from soybeans to milk will give
farmers only a temporary "breather" from the
pressures of consolidation.
"It's not going to change the outcome in the long
run," said Roger Strickland, a USDA analyst, adding
that the high prices eventually will come down. "It
might slow it down a little. The thing that is driving
consolidation is cost efficiency. The smaller guys are
dropping out because they can't compete."
Some argue that what is happening in agriculture is
little different from what is happening elsewhere in
the U.S. economy, with midsize groceries and hardware
stores being replaced by mega-stores such as Wal-Mart
and Home Depot.
"The general picture is just that the economies
of scale keep increasing," said Bruce Gardner,
an agricultural economist at the University of Maryland.
"The size of a farm that makes the most sense is
larger than it used to be."
Technological advances and changes to the structure
of farms have driven the changes, Gardner said. As an
example, he cited the advent of "contract"
farming in which farmers raise pigs on contract for
a meatpacking company rather than owning the animals
themselves. The result has been larger hog farms and
fewer hog farmers, a 37 percent drop from 1997 to 2002,
according to the census.
But others contend that consolidation all along the
food chain, from seed companies to meatpackers, has
hurt the ability of midsize farmers to compete. In the
pork business, for instance, it's easier and cheaper
for a meatpacker to contract all its hogs from one huge
farm rather than buy them from 10 smaller farms.
The critics also argue that U.S. farm subsidies favor
industrial agriculture at the expense of smaller farms.
"The fix was in to concentrate agriculture,"
said Tom Lyson, a professor of development sociology
at Cornell University, who said the loss of midsize
farms devastates rural communities. "It's the Wal-Marting
of agriculture."
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