by Josh Bourassa
The short answer is yes, farms are in trouble. To understand why, we need to look at how milk is produced in America.
Dean foods is the largest fluid processor of raw milk in America. They process almost 90% of the country’s raw milk that goes into the stores. Dean’s profits have gone up 35% over the past two quarters. They say its because the milk prices are so low. The middleman is going to kill the small dairies across the nation. And they don’t realize that it is the small farmers that are keeping the super farms alive. The bigger farms depend on the small farms to harvest their crops for them because they only have time to milk and that’s all they do 24-7.
The farmers are getting less money then it takes to make a gallon of milk. While the big corporate giants like Dean are taking advantage of the raw milk prices. Because the small farms are losing money on the gallon of milk they produce they are falling behind on the repair bills and fuel bills it takes to run the farm. Because they are falling behind they cant keep spending money. That is why a lot of the small dairies are selling everything. From being 20 dollars last January they have fallen 50 % to 10 dollars a hundred weight.
