# The cows were sold, the hay was gone



## FarmerCline

I know Mike usually posts these articles but I read this yesterday and wanted to go ahead and share.

This is an excellent and very well written article by Kristen Traugh on the current state of the dairy industry and what us consumers can do to help support the small family dairy operations. http://www.growingamerica.com/features/2018/03/cows-were-sold-hay-was-gone

Hayden


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## vhaby

So sad! Thanks for posting, Hayden.


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## Tim/South

There will come a time when our nation will look back and realize the mistakes we made by letting the small farmer go under. I am afraid by then it will be too late. No one left to fill their shoes.


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## RockyHill

That was another post that I just couldn't "like".

As heart wrenching as is was reading it, I cannot imagine how difficult it was to write. Kristen has a great talent that hopefully will help people not involved in agriculture see what Tim said:



Tim/South said:


> There will come a time when our nation will look back and realize the mistakes we made by letting the small farmer go under. I am afraid by then it will be too late. No one left to fill their shoes.


I hope the couple in the article and all the others in their predicament can work through all the difficulties and come out stronger.

Shelia


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## Palmettokat

It is sad when any industry see such change that people lose their income, home and hope. However this is not just faced by the farmer but is also faced by all businesses on some scale. I do agree for the farmer is can be much larger scale due to the family history often involved, the dollars are often hugh compared to most family businesses.

It does relate to the farm but just look at the thread here on haytalk about the JD dealerships moving more and more to larger and larger corporations. We were a country of the small town, the small farmer and the small business but we are moving more and more towards bigger being required to survive. That is true in the medical profession big time today. In my area the hospital where my wife have been employed for 44 years and over 1,000 employees have been buying all the doctor offices they can to get bigger so they can survive. Many of these changes in all industry are caused by federal government and state regulations. They are such it takes deep pockets to live with these regulations and other influences.

We are seeing such as this in all industries, from Churches to medical providers to hardware stores to farmers. However in an area where Lowes is doing well in our town (yes we buy a lot there) but since they built we have had two hardware stores that have open from new and are doing well for there is a real need for "service" in that industry. The farmer faces the same challenge. Some will find the niche or such that is right for them and others will not. Frankly this is the very reason I am even on haytalk for the acreage we have row crops were not feasible and long period time considering options decide the best option to keep the family farm was to move to hay.

Please know my heart goes out to those who are facing a scary situation in the article. However too often we give lip service to supporting something but we mean only as long as it cost me nothing in money, effort or time. I have said for years we have responsibility to VOTE, at the booth and with our wallet. So who will stop buying milk from Walmart? If I read it correctly that is the breaking point to these farmers. Hey,who will stop buying more than milk from WalMart for say a month? Been told for years the problem with the farmer is no organization among them. Then if there was would the Federal Government claim anti-trust. Wonder how big a tractor dealership would have to be for that to be a concern?


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## endrow

Palmettokat said:


> It is sad when any industry see such change that people lose their income, home and hope. However this is not just faced by the farmer but is also faced by all businesses on some scale. I do agree for the farmer is can be much larger scale due to the family history often involved, the dollars are often hugh compared to most family businesses.
> 
> It does relate to the farm but just look at the thread here on haytalk about the JD dealerships moving more and more to larger and larger corporations. We were a country of the small town, the small farmer and the small business but we are moving more and more towards bigger being required to survive. That is true in the medical profession big time today. In my area the hospital where my wife have been employed for 44 years and over 1,000 employees have been buying all the doctor offices they can to get bigger so they can survive. Many of these changes in all industry are caused by federal government and state regulations. They are such it takes deep pockets to live with these regulations and other influences.
> 
> We are seeing such as this in all industries, from Churches to medical providers to hardware stores to farmers. However in an area where Lowes is doing well in our town (yes we buy a lot there) but since they built we have had two hardware stores that have open from new and are doing well for there is a real need for "service" in that industry. The farmer faces the same challenge. Some will find the niche or such that is right for them and others will not. Frankly this is the very reason I am even on haytalk for the acreage we have row crops were not feasible and long period time considering options decide the best option to keep the family farm was to move to hay.
> 
> Please know my heart goes out to those who are facing a scary situation in the article. However too often we give lip service to supporting something but we mean only as long as it cost me nothing in money, effort or time. I have said for years we have responsibility to VOTE, at the booth and with our wallet. So who will stop buying milk from Walmart? If I read it correctly that is the breaking point to these farmers. Hey,who will stop buying more than milk from WalMart for say a month? Been told for years the problem with the farmer is no organization among them. Then if there was would the Federal Government claim anti-trust. Wonder how big a tractor dealership would have to be for that to be a concern?


That is a fact and very well said at that!!. My friend who reads HT but does not post wanted me to say for those who say the GUBERMENT always a problem . For years when ever there was a glut of milk our government would help out and when ever they did if it was in the way of a payment, loan, or assistance , They would put a cap per farm like the equivalent of a

175 cow herd .


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## haybaler101

Sad situation. But, anyone that didn't see this coming has had their head in the sand for a long time. I have been in and around the dairy industry for all of my 45 years. I graduated from Purdue in 1995 and returned to the family farm. I already knew then that small was an issue and economy of scales were needed. We milked 75 cows at the time and quickley expanded to 120 to support the extra person. Plans were being made to contiue expansion but a high debt load and a downturn in 2002 was enough to make us decide to liquiidate the dairy. I have been working in the dairy nutrition field ever since and work with what is left of the dairy industry in southwest Indiana. Here are just a few points I have found over the last 25 years that are a detriment to the small family farms.

1. We were paying $0.70/cwt in 1995 to ship milk for a 1/3 of semi load pickup. That was 5% of the milk check gone up front and now the same size farms are paying $1.20 which is pushing 10% of the check. You have to milk enough cows to ship a tanker load from the farm to cut the transportation cost.

2. Shipping tanker loads also allows feed to be purchased in semi load quantities, again greatly reducing freght cost and improving bargaining power on the feed.

3. Milking parlors operated most efficiently on an 8 hour shift. It is a lot easier to hire a person trained to do one job for 8 hours instead of doing 8 jobs in 1 hour. They farmer or husband and wife that tries to do everything by themselves is in for a hard, hard life. 24/7/365 no sick, no vacation and when the money doesn't flow, it is a real freaking drag. Trust me I know, been there done that.

4. Family farms can only be 50 cows in size is a stupid myth. There are only 4 dairies in SW IN that are doing points 1-3. They milk 1600, 1200, 800, and 500 cows and are farmily farms. Yes, they hire labor, but they are family dairy farms which grew from the 50 to 100 cow farms. Trying to make a living off of 50 cows is like trying to grain farm 200 acres for a living or bale 20 acres of hay, it is not going to generate enough income. Family grain farms in this area range from 2000 to 20000 acres and no, mine is only 700 acres and it will not support a family. That is why I have off farm sales and raise 75,000 turkeys per year. We are wanting to double turkey production in the next 3 years.

5. Lets face it, Walmart is going to get a better product off of the large dairies they source for their milk. A farm that ships a 50,000 lb tanker every 8 or 12 hours has a much fresher load than the 50,000 lb truck that makes 10 stops picking up 48 hour old milk. Thiere is also less chance of antibiotic contamination from multiple sources and a lot of the larger dairies have lower SCC than the old 50 cow dairies with old equipment and facilities.

My rant from today.

Joe


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## luke strawwalker

A lot of times farmers are their own worst enemies... the "we've always done it this way" syndrome... some folks just won't switch horses-- they'll just ride the one they're on til it drops in its tracks...

Our family grew cotton and row crops on this land for over 100 years; it wasn't just a tradition but a way of life. But by the early 2000's the writing was on the wall and only a fool would ignore it. Prices were through the roof on EVERYTHING and WILL NOT go down, ever (most likely, unless we have some sort of planet-wide disaster in which case we'll probably all be too far gone to care). Cotton was still selling for the same lousy 70 cents a pound on average that it's been since the 1960's... Then the boll weevil eradication foundation comes riding in and slaps a $20 per acre mandatory fee on every acre of cotton, which like my Dad said, "h3ll, that's the PROFIT-- if they paid the expenses and just paid ME $20 an acre they could have the [email protected] cotton..." It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that it was time to make a change... Renting a bazillion acres and buying a bunch of new shiny iron to work it all was out, so it was time to switch horses...

Farmers tend to "dance with the one that brung ya" but when you're down to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, it's time to make a switch. That's why we decided to just park all the row crop stuff and switch to all cattle and hay. I've sold $2 calves and I remember one year Grandpa sold 30 cent calves, but I tell you what-- there was a heck of a lot more money in 30 cent calves than in the year we got stuck selling 25 cent cotton, simply because expenses were lower! We were experts at cutting costs (sometimes too much so in my opinion) but there's only *so much* you can cut row cropping, and when every crop seed variety out there is well over a hundred bucks a bag AND UP, and fertilizer is what it is, diesel fuel, and every other input, while markets wax and wane more often than the tides, it's a constant uphill battle. Spread it over enough acres, buy enough to bargain and get deals and you can make it work... sorta... That wasn't an option for us.

If the market wants to pay 30 cents a pound for calves, I can deliver 30 cent calves... they'll be the rangiest, pot-bellied raggedy things you ever saw, but I can still eek out a little money off 30 cent calves. So long as the market is paying better we'll be delivering better.

I have a nephew that was renting part of his uncle's farm... he was piddling about with a 30-50 cow dairy herd and had been losing money for YEARS... just slowly bleeding to death. Everybody told him he needed to hang it up and call it quits, but NO it's "what he'd always done" and couldn't see doing anything different, and so he rode that horse as far as it'd go, til it dropped in its tracks... the banks got everything. The nephew TRIED to get him to rent the whole place to him MANY times, instead of just the "problem" ground he couldn't or wouldn't farm; send the cows down the road and just put it all in corn and beans, and let the old dairy barn sit. He wouldn't have it and no amount of talk could convince him otherwise... Now that's what's happened but it's someone else's place, it's not his anymore. Even his mother lost her house (their original house) only the grandson that got a couple acres across the road has his house-- they're all out and off the farm and in town or whatever now.

Sometimes trends just take turns that we don't like to see, don't want to see, but are just as immovable and inevitable as the iceberg in Titanic's path, and it's inevitable-- the hole has been ripped and the ship is sinking-- and we have a choice-- stoically ride her down until she slips under the waves, or get off before she sinks and try something different... Too many guys stick around thinking they'll "stick it out" and "see what happens" and then end up finding "all the lifeboats are gone" and they've waited til it's too late... so they end up foundering anyway.

One thing I HAVE learned is that you better always have a "plan B"... If what you're doing isn't working and you can't make good changes to get it working, you better have a plan B to fall back on. The problem then is what do you do when EVERYTHING is dirt cheap??? Fortunately we haven't had to really figure that one out yet, because usually *something* is capable of being more profitable than continuing to produce whatever in the same way that's become a death spiral...

Later! OL J R


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## endrow

It is a vicious cycle in here well you cannot milk cows unless you ship a Trailer Load of milk per day you cannot crop Farm unless you're at 2,000 acres and enough of guys transitioned to Hay because of all that the hey markets are flooded in here.. but the true problem is tons of people own 100 Acre Farms that's all they own some do vegetables some do tobacco the rest was Dairy and it worked well but now it's over because you got to be big.. those Farms still bring 1.5 million, smart a smart guy would sell . The real estate taxes are too high to just live off land rent. If there is no place for these farms in agriculture and you just can't build three Broiler houses on each and everyone

of these farms


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## luke strawwalker

endrow said:


> It is a vicious cycle in here well you cannot milk cows unless you ship a Trailer Load of milk per day you cannot crop Farm unless you're at 2,000 acres and enough of guys transitioned to Hay because of all that the hey markets are flooded in here.. but the true problem is tons of people own 100 Acre Farms that's all they own some do vegetables some do tobacco the rest was Dairy and it worked well but now it's over because you got to be big.. those Farms still bring 1.5 million, smart a smart guy would sell . The real estate taxes are too high to just live off land rent. If there is no place for these farms in agriculture and you just can't build three Broiler houses on each and everyone
> 
> of these farms


Sometimes the best crop you can plant is a subdivision... sell out and move on. You can't stop progress....

Our family has been working this farm for 115 years, but I see the handwriting on the wall-- every time I look out the window there's a new citiot moving in on their 5 acre ranchette. BTO's here are struggling to make a living, basically the only expansion is as other guys croak or retire and they soak up their ground, so no real opportunities to expand. Friggin' gubmint just sees dollar signs; while paying lip service to wanting to "preserve" farms, but then again they make 100X more tax money off 40 acres covered with 8 ranchettes and a slough of $400,000 homes than they do off "Granny Schickelgruber's farm" with 20 head of cows or a cotton field behind a hundred year old farmhouse being taxed at ag rates... h3ll the county wants all the farmers and poor folks run out of the county, even if they won't say it openly... everything they do is geared towards that end.

Most of the farms around here are slowly being carved up into 5 acre ranchettes and houses grow where cotton and crops grew for over a century... but what can you do?? Better to just cash out and go get some farmland FAR, FAR away from here... let the A-holes have this and turn it into sh!t, since they're doing it anyway...

Hate to see it, but there's nothing you can do about it... it's like facing down a tornado or a flood-- You can 'stand your ground' but it'll just run over you and flatten you out and grind you down and destroy you.

Later! OL J R


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## Palmettokat

OL JR, your post above I can not click I like it for I don't like the story but I totally agree. My baby sister built in Spring Branch Texas about a year ago on a old ranch that was divided as you said. I will say based upon the pictures of the place no idea how they raised any cattle on it for there is very little vegetation on it. I do agree with your advice and that is how the area we are in going.


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## endrow

There's a lot of good stuff here it's a fact there's problems in the dairy industry and there is constantly less dairy farms with higher higher numbers. Unfortunately many of you have never been to central Pennsylvania because if you were you would not make sound like that there's just a couple of assholes on the other side of the tracks trying to run a pigsty who had their heads in the sand for the last 20 years. In the area where I'm at anywhere you drive you're going to drive by Dairy Farm after Dairy Farm after dairy farm there are 1500 dairy farms probably in a Four County area most of them milk under 100 cows . There is a huge infrastructure for the dairy system agriculture support farm equipment dealerships veterinarians feed processing and lots of milk processing. And for those who didn't make it in the dairy business over the years there have been markets build up for fresh flowers vegetables used produce auctions in Lancaster County just about every day of the week all of this done to keep this thing afloat . I know sometimes farmers are their own worst enemies. But here they built cheese processing plants milk processing plants always Blood Sweat Equity from dairy farms and dairy farm cooperatives .


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## luke strawwalker

Palmettokat said:


> OL JR, your post above I can not click I like it for I don't like the story but I totally agree. My baby sister built in Spring Branch Texas about a year ago on a old ranch that was divided as you said. I will say based upon the pictures of the place no idea how they raised any cattle on it for there is very little vegetation on it. I do agree with your advice and that is how the area we are in going.


Yeah, I don't like it either, but life isn't about what we'd like-- it is what it is...

I'm sure there were a lot of buggy and harness makers who were put out of business by the automobile and would like to have maintained their livelihoods,many of which had probably done that for generations, but time and progress marches on, and the only constant is change...

We don't have to like it, though, but ultimately there's nothing we can do about it...

Later! OL J R


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## luke strawwalker

endrow said:


> There's a lot of good stuff here it's a fact there's problems in the dairy industry and there is constantly less dairy farms with higher higher numbers. Unfortunately many of you have never been to central Pennsylvania because if you were you would not make sound like that there's just a couple of assholes on the other side of the tracks trying to run a pigsty who had their heads in the sand for the last 20 years. In the area where I'm at anywhere you drive you're going to drive by Dairy Farm after Dairy Farm after dairy farm there are 1500 dairy farms probably in a Four County area most of them milk under 100 cows . There is a huge infrastructure for the dairy system agriculture support farm equipment dealerships veterinarians feed processing and lots of milk processing. And for those who didn't make it in the dairy business over the years there have been markets build up for fresh flowers vegetables used produce auctions in Lancaster County just about every day of the week all of this done to keep this thing afloat . I know sometimes farmers are their own worst enemies. But here they built cheese processing plants milk processing plants always Blood Sweat Equity from dairy farms and dairy farm cooperatives .


I don't think anybody's denigrating them... that certainly wasn't my intention... BUT, times change, and you either change with them or go under... We don't like it, don't have to like it, but it's simply a fact of life.

The appearance of the refined petroleum market put thousands of whalers and whaling ships out of business, some of whom had surely been whaling for generations and made a good living providing whale oil for lamp light. They too had an entire industrial infrastructure built up around their livelihood-- shipbuilding and repair, sailors, and of course whale oil buyers and sellers, lamp makers, a distribution network, etc. Readily available cheap kerosene from the first oil wells and refineries put an end to it, and the invention and creation of the electrical power industry ended virtually all vestiges of lamp illumination within a generation. I'm sure that the whalers and those who derived their livelihoods from the industry that grew up around whale oil would have liked to continue as well, but times changed and put an end to it. Same thing with the automobile, another offshoot of the petroleum industry, to make use of what up to then had been a hazardous and volatile waste product of the kerosene industry-- gasoline. It put an end to the horse and buggy and the related support industries that were a part of that mode of transportation. I'm sure there were a lot of horse breeders, buggy and harness makers, and leather suppliers that went out of business, some of them had surely been around for generations and would like to have continued as they always had...

It's sad, but change is the nature of things. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. I don't know if there ARE any good solutions... But, change has come and people will either have to find some sort alternatives, either by changing their operations,absorbing smaller ones and getting bigger, switching to other crops/production schemes (like vegetables or flowers or whatever) or just plain get out... Dairying is simply terribly susceptible to the fickleness of the business and industry paradigm that has grown up around it... It's being "chickenized" like everything else. It's not a good thing, and ultimately it will inevitably end up biting us in the butt I'm afraid, in more ways than one, but nevertheless it's where economics and industrialization has driven us... I don't have any solutions, but the first step in that process is correctly ascertaining and assessing the problem... Not just refusing to see the problem and clinging to a past that's vanishing whether we want it to or not...

Later! OL J R


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## Palmettokat

JR, I truly understand and agree in the last say couple of hundred years old industry after old established industry has basically disappeared due to a better system as you have given One thing in some industries there is still room for some real professionals for even with all the cars and pickups there is a big horse business. Have a neighbor who quit working for local phone company to work on harness, saddles and such.

A question for those in areas where the dairy industry is suffering, is raising meat animals an option?


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## endrow

Palmettokat said:


> JR, I truly understand and agree in the last say couple of hundred years old industry after old established industry has basically disappeared due to a better system as you have given One thing in some industries there is still room for some real professionals for even with all the cars and pickups there is a big horse business. Have a neighbor who quit working for local phone company to work on harness, saddles and such.
> 
> A question for those in areas where the dairy industry is suffering, is raising meat animals an option?


 I don't want to sound stupid but I would be someone fearful of that my daughter has a degree in nutrition she is a nutritionist she's married to a doctor who is a surgeon and works in the same related field and they think red meat is in jeopardy more so than milk. But hey you still see plenty of both in the store


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## endrow

luke strawwalker said:


> I don't think anybody's denigrating them... that certainly wasn't my intention... BUT, times change, and you either change with them or go under... We don't like it, don't have to like it, but it's simply a fact of life.
> 
> The appearance of the refined petroleum market put thousands of whalers and whaling ships out of business, some of whom had surely been whaling for generations and made a good living providing whale oil for lamp light. They too had an entire industrial infrastructure built up around their livelihood-- shipbuilding and repair, sailors, and of course whale oil buyers and sellers, lamp makers, a distribution network, etc. Readily available cheap kerosene from the first oil wells and refineries put an end to it, and the invention and creation of the electrical power industry ended virtually all vestiges of lamp illumination within a generation. I'm sure that the whalers and those who derived their livelihoods from the industry that grew up around whale oil would have liked to continue as well, but times changed and put an end to it. Same thing with the automobile, another offshoot of the petroleum industry, to make use of what up to then had been a hazardous and volatile waste product of the kerosene industry-- gasoline. It put an end to the horse and buggy and the related support industries that were a part of that mode of transportation. I'm sure there were a lot of horse breeders, buggy and harness makers, and leather suppliers that went out of business, some of them had surely been around for generations and would like to have continued as they always had...
> 
> It's sad, but change is the nature of things. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. I don't know if there ARE any good solutions... But, change has come and people will either have to find some sort alternatives, either by changing their operations,absorbing smaller ones and getting bigger, switching to other crops/production schemes (like vegetables or flowers or whatever) or just plain get out... Dairying is simply terribly susceptible to the fickleness of the business and industry paradigm that has grown up around it... It's being "chickenized" like everything else. It's not a good thing, and ultimately it will inevitably end up biting us in the butt I'm afraid, in more ways than one, but nevertheless it's where economics and industrialization has driven us... I don't have any solutions, but the first step in that process is correctly ascertaining and assessing the problem... Not just refusing to see the problem and clinging to a past that's vanishing whether we want it to or not...
> 
> Later! OL J R


 the big problem is greed and dishonesty there is just no one you can trust. All farmers in this area call the meeting and process with a Cooperative managers and processing people in August and ask should we chop corn or should we just forget about it sell the cows combine the corn and sell that and we were assured the markets would turn around. Just before the end of this year the local bank had two agricultural economists in for a day seminar and they painted a very good picture 4 dairy farms in this area it made front page of Lancaster Farming. This was followed by risk management classes and also seminars that would help one deal with the current Dairy economy in a more realistic way and it address to surplus building. Robotic milkers was a philosophy that would help us be competitive in this area with smaller Farms my son took a lot of these classes and said they were advising these Farms to milk 225 cows. Milk Futures had rebounded somewhat so everything was pointed in the right direction. 4 Weeks Later $15 milk 14 to $13 milk in the futures no hope for 18 months.


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## Palmettokat

I like this story, is it true? you decide.

This gentleman had food cart from which he sold hamburgers and hotdogs (before they were considered bad for you) and had sent his son to collage. He studied economics and when he graduated the talked with his dad about how improper he was running his business which mind you was very profitable for years. The son said "DAD" the economy is in terrible shape and it is going to get worse. You must change how you are running your business.

So Dad wanting to benefit from his investment in his son's education asked what to do. Yes the son had these great ideas. You must cut your cost. Dad how do I do that. Son you must buy lower price buns and meat. Dad but these are the best. Son but price is too high. So Dad knowing how educated his son was took his advice. And sure enough his son was correct, his economy did get worse and worse till he had to close his vending business to which he said son I am so blessed to have had your advice and help, no idea how bad it would have been for me had I not followed it

What am I saying: Quality is always in demand. Somethings you have to create the quality but educating the customer. Yes price may sell any product but as the saying goes the price is forgotten quicker than poor quality is. As JR has pointed out it changes, not everything changes in life but many things do. We have to look at "our" operation, business, family what ever and think being very honest as what we are not profitable on and can I get profitable and what would it take to do so or no can not and need to stop with that product or such. Then is there a way to make what I am profitable on be more profitable and what might I add to my business that will fit the business than can be profitable. I will use corn mazes as one thing some here are doing it seems very well. I did not grow up with corn mazes. Was a while before I realized what they were. Okay I am slow on somethings.

I meet a lady in NC a few years back who has an organic dairy. She feeds her cows organic hay, which was very costly. NC and maybe Federal Law also not sure does not allow that milk to be sold for human consummation as it is not treated in any manner. It has to be sold for animal feed or something along that line. They run I think it was maybe 10 cows. Not making a lot of money but it was a profitable operation. That is a person who took what they had the ability to do and did it and it worked for them. Realize that is a niche market but it is her market. She had people driving I think like 75 miles one way to buy that milk.

I am no expert on farming by no means, by far am now looking at it a must be a money maker at level that suits me or I quit. I will be 65 in little while and do not need a money losing hobby. Can do that with fishing. So I began looking at my operation to decide what could be profitable, what I needed to make it work and began to find support from people I knew and trusted who were raising hay and then was blessed to find more people I can trust and who are raising hay here on haytalk to help me. I do ask a lot of questions I know that, I realize there is so much I do not know and what worries me is not knowing what I do not know. But you people here are so willing and helpful and knowledge it is amazing.

Back to options to dairy, I honestly believe there is a farming option for many but it may be so different than what they are use to it is over looked. Depending on the area you are in you may can team up with local restaurants to produce food just for them. People do notice when restaurants advertise they use local raise products. Know that is done with produce and meats. Take care and God Bless you.


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## endrow

CEO of DFA sent out a 4 page hand written somewhat uplifting letter to all the members


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## PaMike

endrow said:


> CEO of DFA sent out a 4 page hand written somewhat uplifting letter to all the members


Do you get financial info from them since you are a member? Are they hurting financially due to low milk prices? Do they work on a percent margin or a fixed margin?


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## swmnhay

https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/02/26/why-dean-foods-company-stock-plunged-today.aspx

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/df?ltr=1


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## endrow

We get the financial information from DFA they tell us they had record profits last year each district holds a semi annual meeting we are informed there as well. DFA is a milk marketing coop the members own it still as a member it isn't they it's us. They would say the staff working for the members will Market your milk and that is the amount that's on your milk check and then they deduct Trucking and advertising and Coop dues. Those dudes would be administrative fees staff salary and bonuses and any Equity that needs to be retained to keep the coop afloat in the future.


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## swmnhay

endrow said:


> We get the financial information from DFA they tell us they had record profits last year each district holds a semi annual meeting we are informed there as well. DFA is a milk marketing coop the members own it still as a member it isn't they it's us. They would say the staff working for the members will Market your milk and that is the amount that's on your milk check and then they deduct Trucking and advertising and Coop dues. Those dudes would be administrative fees staff salary and bonuses and any Equity that needs to be retained to keep the coop afloat in the future.


had me confused for a bit between Dean Foods and DFA-Dairy Farmers of America.


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